Compatibilism: What's that About?

[DBT]

An effect within a series of causes and effects cannot, by definition, escape causal necessity.

Exactly. Fortunately, no one ever experiences causal necessity as a constraint. So, they never feel any need to be free of it.

How they feel about it has no bearing on their necessitated condition. How they feel about it is also necessitated.

Freedom entails the ability to do otherwise, which causal necessity does not permit

The notion of an "ability" suggests something that we could do if we chose to. But it never implies that we are actually going to do it.

As causal necessity determines all related actions, necessitated subjects not only are not going to act otherwise, they literally cannot act otherwise. A condition that necessarily excludes freedom.

 

[DBT]

you have not adequately explained free will in relation to determinism

I don't need to. I need to explain free will from within closed systems game theory, which I have. Determinism or !determinism does not matter because all systems, fully deterministic or just-so deterministic (stochastic), can only be modeled from the inside imperfectly, in a stochastic way.

Closed system games theory is a Red Herring. If you believe it's relevant, you need to explain how it is relevant. You have not done that.

This creates the possibility for a model to arise of the system, within the system, which features a will. Technically every subset of material within the system interacting as a "reference frame" or with "locality" has such an observable will, it's just chaotic and entropic for things that "aren't alive". The rock has "no" alignment towards goals, and it's learning function is purely reactive and even destructive.

Irrelevant to the issue of free will

In many ways this comes down to whether the material in reference has some model of math, a concept of "more" and "less", implemented in some machine of chemistry.

Still irrelevant to the issue of free will, how the brain functions, how decisions are made, the relationship between decisions, will and behaviour.

It does not matter whether the system is deterministic, or just-so deterministic. Determinism is unimportant to compatibilist positions.

It says "one property is not related to nor restricted by the other."

The thing that creates free will is in fact that the minds of the players of the game are created by the environment of the game. It is the containment, not the systemic determinism that creates it.

Irrelevant to brain architecture, function, information processing, cognition, motor action, etc, etc.

Try to explain why you think it's relevant to the debate on free will by relating it to cognition, motor actions, determinism, etc.

 

[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.

It is the state and condition of the system that determines output, not ''will.''

This is true for all systems, mechanical systems, silicon chips, animals, plants, the weather.... all things act according to their own nature and makeup, without 'free will.'

The brain functions on the principle of inputs, memory function and criteria,

The brain inputs the restaurant menu, remembers past eating experiences and its dietary goals, and chooses what it will have for dinner.

Yes, but information processing does not involve free will.

Which is not a matter of choice.

Well, we don't choose our brains, or how our brains work, but that does not prevent us from choosing what we will have for dinner. That's what brains do.

Brains do that on the principle of neural architecture, state and condition in the moment of decision making with no possible alternate action in any given moment in time. A progression of states that is not regulated through the agency of will, hence there is no free will at play.

Your claim that we have to choose our brain and choose how it works before we can choose anything else is obviously false. And it doesn't matter whether you say it or Robert Kane says it or Albert Einstein says it. It remains a false claim.

I point out that we don't choose our state and condition, yet it is our unchosen state and condition that makes us who we are and how we think and act.

''If free will does not generate movement, what does? Movement generation seems to come largely from the primary motor cortex, and its input comes primarily from premotor cortices, parts of the frontal lobe just in front of the primary motor cortex. The premotor cortices receive input from most of the brain, especially the sensory cortices (which process information from our senses), limbic cortices (the emotional part of the brain), and the prefrontal cortex (which handles many cognitive processes). If the inputs from various neurons “compete,” eventually one input wins, leading to a final behavior. For example, take the case of saccadic eye movements, quick target-directed eye movements. Adding even a small amount of electrical stimulation in different small brain areas can lead to a monkey's making eye movements in a different direction than might have been expected on the basis of simultaneous visual cues.4 In general, the more we know about the various influences on the motor cortex, the better we can predict what a person will do.'' M. Hallett. Clinical Neurophysiology

If you believe the claim is true, then please offer some proof. So far, you've only offered evidence as to how the brain works. And you seem to think that the fact that our brain is making our choices is somehow different from the fact that we are making our choices. That would only be possible if we existed separately from our brains, but we don't.

We are not separate from the brain. It is the brain that generates us as conscious beings. We are in effect the avatar a brain constructs in order to interact with the external world. It wakes us up in the morning to go about doing what is necessary and puts us to sleep at night.

That is the point. The brain doesn't choose its own condition, yet it is the condition of a brain that makes us who we are.

Given that it's the state and condition of the brain that determines outcome in the moment of decision making, the option was chosen,

Thank you for owning up to the fact that the option was indeed chosen.

The brain doesn't choose its own condition, yet behaviour is related to condition.


On the neurology of morals
''Patients with medial prefrontal lesions often display irresponsible behavior, despite being intellectually unimpaired. But similar lesions occurring in early childhood can also prevent the acquisition of factual knowledge about accepted standards of moral behavior.''

There is no argument as to how the brain works. The free will label is applied when the brain belongs to a sane adult who is deciding for his or her self what they will have for dinner. The issue is whether the ingredients happen to include a guy with a gun forcing his will upon them.

One is inner necessitation, the other a matter of external force or coercion. Neither involves free will. You act according to your will as a matter of necessity.

That is the nature of determinism.

In other words:
''The brain is a physical system whose operation is governed solely by the laws of chemistry and physics. What does this mean?"

You will not find the restaurant menu in any textbook on physics or chemistry. Nor can you construct, or even predict, that menu by all of the knowledge found in the books covering the physical sciences.

You have to move up to the biological sciences to know that living organisms require food to survive, thrive, and reproduce. That's one of the laws of biology. Biological organisms run upon systems made of physics and chemistry, but their behavior cannot be predicted without adding the laws of biology. And you have to move up one more level to the social sciences to understand the psychological laws covering people choosing from that menu, and then there are the laws of economics for running a restaurant.

If determinism is true, it ultimately comes down to the state of the system, the state of the world, the state of the brain, circumstances, criteria, etc.

Agency is the issue. If we lack the right kind of regulative control, it cannot be claimed that we possess free will.

For the reasons outlined above and described in numerous posts, articles, brain function, case studies, quotes and links, it appears that we lack the right kind of regulative control, therefore cannot claim to have free will. We do have will, we can think and act according to our needs and wants, but lacking the right kind of regulative control, this does does not qualify as free will.


If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happen 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

 

[Jarhyn]

you need to explain how it is relevant

I did, several times. That you did not read them indicates yet again that I am dealing with a MrIntelligentDesign class of actor.

It comes down to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, though I haven't been calling it that because I didn't care enough to look up who else proved it and how and when.

Because no system can host a perfect and complete model of itself, all actors within the system must necessarily hold incomplete models of the system.

This creates a system, within whatever containing deterministic infrastructure, of stochastic operation.

It is within this stochastic subsystem, hosted by the deterministic environment, that "free will" has meaning.

 

[Jarhyn]

I'm saying that you saying that you have thoughts that you then describe some fantasy about what your brain and neurons are doing to produce such is BS

No, you are denying that plans are a thing.

I mean it's almost cute, in a sad kind of way, like watching various posters around the forums flopping around like a fish trying to convince people they discovered intelligence.

I've watched whole AI run, developing plans, running next-step analysis, providing decision branch results... But sure, it's all in my head.

You are seriously trying to claim that plans are not assessable? That plans, spoken wills, are not evidence of wills of thought?

We have a whole planet of things built around modelling the future so as to make better decisions in the present. It has been well studied, observed, and noted.

The objectively measurable quality of these plans is central to free will, and is enabled by broadly deterministic properties of our universe.

Claiming elsewise is just facile.

 

[fromderinside]

Simple solution to a problem. Provide study describing how brain produces plans, neuron by neuron, You should be able to do this because Scientists have been using Functional magnetic resonance techniques to study largescale brain oxygen uptake for about 25 years now.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about.

A residual marker of cognitive reserve is associated with resting-state intrinsic functional connectivity along the Alzheimer’s disease continuum

Ersin Ersoezlue 1,2*, Robert Perneczky 1,3,4,5,34*# , Maia Tatò 1 , Julia Utecht 1 , Carolin Kurz 1 , Jan Häckert 1 , Selim Guersel 1 , Lena Burow 1 , Gabriele Koller 1 , Sophia Stöcklein 6 , Daniel Keeser 1,6, Boris Papazov 6 , Marie Totzke 1 , Tommaso Ballarini 7 , Frederic Brosseron 7 , Katharina Buerger 9,10, Peter Dechent 11, Laura Dobisch 12,14, Michael Ewers 9,10, Klaus Fliessbach 7,8, Wenzel Glanz 12, John Dylan Haynes 14, Michael T Heneka 7,8, Daniel Janowitz 10, Ingo Kilimann 15,16, Luca Kleineidam 7 , Christoph Laske 17,18, Franziska Maier 19, Matthias H Munk 17,18, Oliver Peters 20,21, Josef Priller 20,22,23,24, Alfredo Ramirez 7,8,25,26, Sandra Röske 7 , Nina Roy 7 , Klaus Scheffler 27, Anja Schneider 7,8, Björn H Schott 28,29,33, Annika Spottke 7,30, Eike Jakob Spruth 21,22, Stefan Teipel 15,16, Chantal Unterfeld 20, Michael Wagner 7,8, Xiao Wang 20, Jens Wiltfang 28,29,31, Steffen Wolfsgruber 7,8, Renat Yakupov 12, Emrah Düzel 12,13, Frank Jessen 7,19,32, and Boris-Stephan Rauchmann1,6# DELCODE study group - medRxiv, 2022 - medrxiv.org

Abstract Background: Cognitive reserve (CR) explains interindividual differences in the impact of neurodegenerative burden on cognitive and daily functioning. A residual model was proposed to estimate CR more accurately compared to static measures, such as years of education. However, the functional brain correlates of residual CR markers (CRM) remain unexplored. Methods: From the DELCODE cohort, 318 participants with resting-state functional and structural MRI data were included and stratified using cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers according to the A(myloid-β, Aβ)/T(au)/N(eurodegeneration) classification scheme, resulting in 112 Aβ-negative healthy controls and 206 Aβ-positive patients in the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) spectrum.. CRM was calculated utilizing residuals obtained from a multilinear regression model using global cognition as dependent variable and demographic and disease burden measures as predictors. Associations between the CRM and intrinsic network connectivity (INC) in resting-state networks associated with cognition were explored, including the default mode network (DMN), frontoparietal network (FPN), salience network (SAL) and dorsal attention network (DAN). Moreover, the association between memory performance-associated regional INC and CRM was assessed.

if you get through the material you should understand a bit of the complexity that exist in developing good models from living brain data. Your gratuitous hand waves don't come close.

(Looks like a subcommittee report one would find from the Physicist work groups on the  Large Hadron Collider)

 

[Marvin Edwards]

How they feel about it has no bearing on their necessitated condition.

Originally, people had never heard of "causal necessity", so they had no feelings about it at all. Everyone knew about cause and effect because they used that notion every day. But no one had viewed themselves as "victims" of anything other than specific causes, such as an injury or a disease.

Then some philosopher, a weaver of paradoxes, suggested to them that causal necessity was a force that controlled their lives and stole away their freedom.

It was conveyed by a false suggestion embedded in a couple of simple questions:
1. If you have prior causes, then aren't they "truly" responsible for all of your choices and actions?
2. How can you be "truly" free unless you are also free of your prior causes?

The philosopher, having made himself miserable, started looking for company, and proceeded to spread this misery to everyone else, using the same false suggestions to create the same paradox in other minds.

How they feel about it is also necessitated.

Nothing is ever causally necessitated except by some specific causes. The cause of the paradox was the suggestion that we needed to be free of prior causes in order to be causes ourselves. It did not occur to anyone that our prior causes could not pass that test. Nor could the prior causes of our prior causes. If the test were valid, then none of our prior causes could be called "true" causes, and the notion of the causal chain would collapse.

As causal necessity determines all related actions, necessitated subjects not only are not going to act otherwise, they literally cannot act otherwise. A condition that necessarily excludes freedom.

The paradox was fleshed out by portraying causal necessity as a causal agent, a force that "determines all related actions" and turns us into "necessitated subjects" with no control or freedom of our own.

And it is always interesting to see the figurative use of the word "literally". For example, consider the statement "necessitated subjects not only are not going to act otherwise, they literally cannot act otherwise." While it is literally true that necessitated events "would not" happen differently, it is false to suggest that this implies that the events that did not happen "could not" have happened.

This is easy to clear up by inserting the missing "as if": "Because necessitated subjects are not going to act otherwise, then it is AS IF they cannot act otherwise."

As I pointed out before, the notion of an "ability" refers to something that we could do if we chose to. But it never implies that we are actually going to do it. The ability remains, whether or not we actually exercise it.

The fact that "we will not do it" never implies that we did not have the "ability to do it". Whether the ability to do something exists or not can be easily verified by a simple test: try doing it. If you are unable to do it, then you lack that ability. If you are able to do it, then you have that ability.

In regards to causal necessity, it will either be causally necessary that we actually do it, or, it will be causally necessary that we do not actually do it. We retain the "ability" to do it whether we actually do it or not.

So, causal necessity literally does not remove any abilities. Nor does it remove any possibilities. Nor does it remove any of the things that we could have done instead of what we did.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

It is the state and condition of the system that determines output, not ''will.'' This is true for all systems, mechanical systems, silicon chips, animals, plants, the weather.... all things act according to their own nature and makeup, without 'free will.'

I've yet to hear you say anything that logically conflicts with what I am saying. Consider what you've just said. We agree that the brain is the system that we are talking about. And that the brain, using unconscious processing plus conscious awareness, makes decisions on behalf of the person. And it does so deterministically, as you say, "According to our own nature and makeup."

According to our own nature and makeup, we normally decide for ourselves what we will do. This decision is referred to as a "freely chosen will", to distinguish it from other circumstances where, for example, a person with a gun may decide for us what we will do, subjugating our will to his choice.

You keep referring to some other notion of free will, where we must exist separate from our own brain, and micro-manage its workings, or it is not really us making the choice. And you appear to disagree with that notion, despite the fact that you keep injecting it into this discussion as if it were somehow related to what I am saying. It is not.

It is a common complaint that these discussions are never-ending because both sides are talking past each other, and not hearing what the other is saying.

What I am saying is simply this:

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

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

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

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

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

Is there anything there that you disagree with?

 

[Jarhyn]

Provide study describing how brain produces plans, neuron by neuron

You should understand how you asking for this is identical in character and as deserving of respect as an argument from a Creotard saying "but where's the missing link?"

I have built simple neural systems myself which incorporate models of behavior and which make decision on data.

I understand that the machine that is inside my head and which I think with and whose graph structure gives rise to the phenomena of "Jarhyn" is no different in basic function, though with a fair number more parameters to the basic neural unit.

At any rate it is unimportant in the observation that it decides on where to go and how to operate on the basis of how it models things.

You can yourself download an AI which predicts next step of environment and displays the plan. It does this because the creator of such understood the network well enough to show it doing this. There are a few good examples as regards "Super Mario Brothers"

What is important here is that I have observed the large-scale evidence of a plan existing on the basis that I can reproduce the plan to a fidelity that another thing can pick it up and implement it all the same, and anyone can all can pick it up, understand it well enough to implement the behavior described in it, and then without even doing the thing say "that will not work!".

 

[fromderinside]

Provide study describing how brain produces plans, neuron by neuron

You should understand how you asking for this is identical in character and as deserving of respect as an argument from a Creotard saying "but where's the missing link?"

I have built simple neural systems myself which incorporate models of behavior and which make decision on data.

I understand that the machine that is inside my head and which I think with and whose graph structure gives rise to the phenomena of "Jarhyn" is no different in basic function, though with a fair number more parameters to the basic neural unit.

At any rate it is unimportant in the observation that it decides on where to go and how to operate on the basis of how it models things.

You can yourself download an AI which predicts next step of environment and displays the plan. It does this because the creator of such understood the network well enough to show it doing this. There are a few good examples as regards "Super Mario Brothers"

What is important here is that I have observed the large-scale evidence of a plan existing on the basis that I can reproduce the plan to a fidelity that another thing can pick it up and implement it all the same, and anyone can all can pick it up, understand it well enough to implement the behavior described in it, and then without even doing the thing say "that will not work!".

Oh neat. An analogy. You got an erector set for plans. Wow. What does it mean to use screws and nuts in the 'plan'. How many turns per thought rate?

Most of us have watched War Games. Do you want to play a game?

Puleez.

I looked out this morning and I saw no one throwing lightning bolts. So much for your 'plan' capacity.

Bad fiction is bad fiction. Worse. It's just plane wrong.

I'll bet your plan has almost none of the elements described in the study I provided for your convenience. ... and that IS the point.

 

[Jarhyn]

Provide study describing how brain produces plans, neuron by neuron

You should understand how you asking for this is identical in character and as deserving of respect as an argument from a Creotard saying "but where's the missing link?"

I have built simple neural systems myself which incorporate models of behavior and which make decision on data.

I understand that the machine that is inside my head and which I think with and whose graph structure gives rise to the phenomena of "Jarhyn" is no different in basic function, though with a fair number more parameters to the basic neural unit.

At any rate it is unimportant in the observation that it decides on where to go and how to operate on the basis of how it models things.

You can yourself download an AI which predicts next step of environment and displays the plan. It does this because the creator of such understood the network well enough to show it doing this. There are a few good examples as regards "Super Mario Brothers"

What is important here is that I have observed the large-scale evidence of a plan existing on the basis that I can reproduce the plan to a fidelity that another thing can pick it up and implement it all the same, and anyone can all can pick it up, understand it well enough to implement the behavior described in it, and then without even doing the thing say "that will not work!".

Oh neat. An analogy. You got an erector set for plans. Wow. What does it mean to use screws and nuts in the 'plan'. How many turns per thought rate?

Most of us have watched War Games. Do you want to play a game?

Puleez.

I looked out this morning and I saw no one throwing lightning bolts. So much for your 'plan' capacity.

Bad fiction is bad fiction. Worse. It's just plane wrong.

I'll bet your plan has almost none of the elements described in the study I provided for your convenience. ... and that IS the point.

Wow, so you wave your arms around, and spit some word salad?

I know another thread that occasionally gets that treatment too.

You keep asking for evidence of this "plan" stuff, evidence of will, and we have been shoveling it at you and you have been ignoring it quite religiously.

Honestly, it just makes me wonder what it could possibly be that you are so obviously trying to make "not your fault" or "not anyone's fault" because "free will doesn't exist" because if it did you would have a very bad time thinking about that.

 

[fromderinside]

I take a pretty strict view of what is meant by the scientific method. It is an empirical method based on material evidence which means that everything needs be associated with a material fact, particle, or force in operational statements and based on existing verified physical theory and data. It does not mean one can present a self-identified thing like mind and couch it in math or logic instead of verified physical bases.

You have yet to show you understand that simple principle. Quantitative means physical/material substance/substantiation. The reason I presented that article by many authors is that it develops a quantitative description of processes verified by energy consumption by specific neurons under verifiable conditions and activities in behaving humans. It is not some model of mind invented by hypothetical processes working in a logical structure.

You build your model doing the things you think it should be doing to accomplish some goal or another. That is not the same as measuring energy uptake in neurons carrying out some suite of known neural functions. The two are not the same.

It is my basis for denying mind has will because there is no evidence there is such a thing as will in the brain beyond some abstract presumptions of semantical manipulation.

When you come to realize models are not minds, that brains do the work and they do it in very neural-like ways following neural principles of association, inhibition, and conduction using chemical processes of integration and transmission.

As a first year graduate student I built a physical electrical model of auditory reception and conduction that completely replicated processes based on observed biological processes doing such in nervous systems. I validated the model by recording those processes in a living organism and comparing them with the model. That is a bit different than building a logical model of mind based on logical presumptions and observer intuitions.

 

[DBT]

How they feel about it has no bearing on their necessitated condition.

Originally, people had never heard of "causal necessity", so they had no feelings about it at all. Everyone knew about cause and effect because they used that notion every day. But no one had viewed themselves as "victims" of anything other than specific causes, such as an injury or a disease.

Whatever people thought in the past was necessitated by the conditions of the time, the world, the environment and personal circumstances which determined the range and content of thought during any given period, ie, an ancient Roman citizen was incapable of thinking about Astrophysics because that information did not exist at the time.

Being unaware or aware of the process of necessitation, determinism or causality (whatever suits) doesn't free anyone from it.

 

[DBT]

you need to explain how it is relevant

I did, several times. That you did not read them indicates yet again that I am dealing with a MrIntelligentDesign class of actor.

It comes down to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, though I haven't been calling it that because I didn't care enough to look up who else proved it and how and when.

Because no system can host a perfect and complete model of itself, all actors within the system must necessarily hold incomplete models of the system.

This creates a system, within whatever containing deterministic infrastructure, of stochastic operation.

It is within this stochastic subsystem, hosted by the deterministic environment, that "free will" has meaning.

That in no way, shape or form relates to the structure and function of the brain, the nature of cognition, decision making, the role of will or how all this works within a determined system - the issue being compatibilism, which means relating or linking the idea of 'free will' to determinism.

You have not done that. You are hand waving. You need an argument. You need descriptions.

 

[DBT]

It is the state and condition of the system that determines output, not ''will.'' This is true for all systems, mechanical systems, silicon chips, animals, plants, the weather.... all things act according to their own nature and makeup, without 'free will.'

I've yet to hear you say anything that logically conflicts with what I am saying. Consider what you've just said. We agree that the brain is the system that we are talking about. And that the brain, using unconscious processing plus conscious awareness, makes decisions on behalf of the person. And it does so deterministically, as you say, "According to our own nature and makeup."

Pretty much everything I have said, described, quoted and cited conflicts with the notion of free will.

Determinism by nature and definition eliminates freedom of will.

It basically comes down to a lack of the necessary regulatory control for will to qualify as being free.

If something is determined/necessitated, it is not free to choose or do otherwise.

Whatever is determined to happen, happens, no alternative decision possible.

According to our own nature and makeup, we normally decide for ourselves what we will do. This decision is referred to as a "freely chosen will", to distinguish it from other circumstances where, for example, a person with a gun may decide for us what we will do, subjugating our will to his choice.

But there is no choice to be had within determinism. The state of the system determines outcomes, outcomes determine outcomes and on it rolls, unstoppable and unchangeable.

Everthing has a determined state and everything acts according to its makeup. Makeup and action is not chosen.

Sparrows act like sparrows, horses like horses, the earth spins, the sun shines, humans argue over ideas......

You keep referring to some other notion of free will, where we must exist separate from our own brain, and micro-manage its workings, or it is not really us making the choice. And you appear to disagree with that notion, despite the fact that you keep injecting it into this discussion as if it were somehow related to what I am saying. It is not.

Freedom entails the possibility to do otherwise in any given situation. Determinism doesn't allow the possibility of doing otherwise in any given situation.

Hence, if will is supposed to be the regulator of decision making, will has no ability to do otherwise, will does precisely what is determined, will is necessitated, hence will is not an example of free will.

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

''An action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents. '

It is a common complaint that these discussions are never-ending because both sides are talking past each other, and not hearing what the other is saying.

I can only point out the problems with compatibilism as I see it. The opposition argues from their perspective. Whether someone is convinced or not is a matter of how they perceive the issue. And around and around it goes.

What I am saying is simply this:

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

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

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

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

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

Is there anything there that you disagree with?

What you call 'freely chosen' in terms of goals, reasons or interests is not chosen, these things are determined by conditions beyond the control or choice of the individual;


''Human behavior is affected both by genetic inheritance and by experience. The ways in which people develop are shaped by social experience and circumstances within the context of their inherited genetic potential. The scientific question is just how experience and hereditary potential interact in producing human behavior.

Each person is born into a social and cultural setting—family, community, social class, language, religion—and eventually develops many social connections. The characteristics of a child's social setting affect how he or she learns to think and behave, by means of instruction, rewards and punishment, and example. This setting includes home, school, neighborhood, and also, perhaps, local religious and law enforcement agencies. Then there are also the child's mostly informal interactions with friends, other peers, relatives, and the entertainment and news media. How individuals will respond to all these influences, or even which influence will be the most potent, tends not to be predictable.

There is, however, some substantial similarity in how individuals respond to the same pattern of influences—that is, to being raised in the same culture. Furthermore, culturally induced behavior patterns, such as speech patterns, body language, and forms of humor, become so deeply imbedded in the human mind that they often operate without the individuals themselves being fully aware of them.''

 

[Jarhyn]

compatibilism, which means..

No, compatibilism does not mean linking anything to anything.

Compatibilism just says "this idea remains compatible with this other idea."

Compatibilism just says "this thing can exist alongside or during this other condition/property"

There is no "implies" relationship as comes from "determinism" properties there is no link, they are independent aspects of the system.

A deterministic system may not feature free will if the system evolution were in "constant time", but it is not: one cannot know the current state and next state without having calculated current state and all preceding states. Y = x+2, for example, is a system which allows no freedom.

A stochastic system may not feature free will if 100% of the input to system states is within the domain of randomness. Snakes and ladders offers no freedom either.

A car with power windows is compatible, as a concept, with having seat heaters. Having seat heaters is compatible with power windows. Most cars with heated seats do have power windows, but it one is not required by the other. Power Windows are compatible with Seat Heaters.

These properties are simply not dependent nor implied. They are merely "compatible".

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Whatever people thought in the past was necessitated by the conditions of the time, the world, the environment and personal circumstances which determined the range and content of thought during any given period, ie, an ancient Roman citizen was incapable of thinking about Astrophysics because that information did not exist at the time.

Yes. But a simpler explanation of a history of causation is, well, history. Astronomy was studied in ancient times because it helped trace the seasons for planting and harvesting. There were reading stones leading to eyeglasses leading to the telescope leading to Astrophysics.

The key element in this natural progression of events was human curiosity and imagination. The biological drive to survive, thrive, and reproduce followed by the intelligence to imagine new possibilities from current facts.

Causal necessity played no role, because, well it is descriptive and not causative. Biological drives and Intelligence are causative. The evolution of ideas and new inventions are the necessary result of curiosity and imagination.

So, to the extent that the progress of science is a good thing, it is not happening due to causal necessity, but rather happening because of us.

Being unaware or aware of the process of necessitation, determinism or causality (whatever suits) doesn't free anyone from it.

Fortunately, no one experiences causal necessitation, determinism, or causality as something that we need to be free of. Well, at least they never experienced it prior to the creation of the paradox.

Instead they experienced the specific effects of specific causes. Some of these causes, like viral diseases, actually constrained them. Some of them, like medical discoveries, freed them from diseases.

Right now, we need to be set free from the stupid forking paradox.

 

[Jarhyn]

You build your model

And there it is, acknowledgement that there is a model in my head.

I don't need to measure the neurons to know this it is made apparent by the existence of the plan written down on the paper that other people can observe.

It is proof that there is some geometry of connectivity which encodes and implements it physically.

I need no more than this: the plan, the model, can be objectively evaluated, and so the plan, the model, the will, objectively exists.

And whether the model this will is reliant on is accurate enough to accomplish the goal, determines whether it is "free".

 

[pood]

I can only point out the problems with compatibilism as I see it. The opposition argues from their perspective. Whether someone is convinced or not is a matter of how they perceive the issue. And around and around it goes.

It’s true the discussion goes round and round, because you draw inferences from empirical facts, but these inferences have no empirical justification.

You continue to suppose that the “laws” of nature are prescriptive, when in fact they are descriptive. Descriptions of nature cannot cause ANYTHING to happen; it is the other way around: The descriptions take their truth from the way the world is. The way that the world is, causes the descriptions to be true.

Second, you continually commit the modal fallacy of claiming that because we DID NOT do x, then we COULD NOT HAVE DONE x.

You quote philosophers like Hoefer and experimentalists like Libet in support of your position, but overlook the fact that neither agrees with your position. That’s OK; you’re free to use their definitions and experiments in support of your claims, while perhaps averring that they themselves have come to faulty conclusions based on their own definitions and experiments. But the fact that they disagree with you might at least give you pause, it seems to me.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Pretty much everything I have said, described, quoted and cited conflicts with the notion of free will.

But nothing you've said conflicts with the notion of a choice being made while free of coercion and undue influence.

Your "free will" always seems to require being free of something else, like freedom from causation or freedom from oneself, or freedom from ones brain, etc.

If you define "free will" as something that you know to be impossible, then it appears to me to be a strawman. Why would you choose a definition of free will that you know is impossible?

Determinism by nature and definition eliminates freedom of will.

But a choice we make while free of coercion and undue influence is deterministic by any rational definition of determinism. All of the events in the choosing process follow one upon the other through natural cause and effect. The restaurant menu requires us to make a choice. The choosing necessarily leads to a specific choice.

So, my question here is, are you are using a definition of determinism that is designed to eliminate free will? If so, then that definition would also be a strawman.

It basically comes down to a lack of the necessary regulatory control for will to qualify as being free.

And yet we have sufficient regulatory control to decide for ourselves what we will order for dinner. This would seem to refute the claim that we lack sufficient regulatory control for a choice that is free of coercion and undue influence.

Now, we would indeed lack sufficient regulatory control to make this choice while "free of our brains", or "free of our prior causes", or otherwise "free of our selves". But, again, those are impossible freedoms. So, if you attach any of those "freedoms", to the notion of free will, a strawman, something that you know cannot exist, is created.

If something is determined/necessitated, it is not free to choose or do otherwise.

The fact that a person will not do otherwise does not logically imply that they cannot do otherwise. The conflation of what "will" happen with what "can" happen is a logical, linguistic, and semantic error. One that I've described in detail.

Can you recall the explanation I gave, and explain what it is you find wrong with it?

Whatever is determined to happen, happens, no alternative decision possible.

But the restaurant example proves that to be wrong. It was determined that each customer in the restaurant would be faced with a literal menu of alternate decisions that they could, and must, choose from. Each had the ability to order any item on the menu. The fact that they did not order the steak is insufficient to prove that they could not have chosen the steak. It is only sufficient to prove that they would not have chosen the steak that evening.

So, how do you get to the conclusion that they had no other possibilities than the one they chose? We can certainly agree that under those exact circumstances they would not choose otherwise, but we cannot get from there that they could not choose otherwise. All the evidence seems to point to the fact that they could have chosen anything they wanted from the menu.

Can we get this matter resolved?

But there is no choice to be had within determinism. The state of the system determines outcomes, outcomes determine outcomes and on it rolls, unstoppable and unchangeable.

Ironically, that means that every choice, and every choosing event, with all its possibilities, that is involved in any inevitable outcome is equally unstoppable and unchangeable.

You have not yet dealt with this issue.

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

You need to specify the kind of "necessity" involved. It is necessary that I stop at a red light. But it is not necessary that I order the steak for dinner.

Causal necessity results in me doing what I would have done anyway. It is always satisfied in every freedom that I exercise. So it presents no real threat to any normal notions of freedom. Only specific causes, like the red light (legal necessity), or the guy with a gun (coercion), or some other specific constraint that prevents me from doing what I am normally able to do, such as being handcuffed, are real constraints upon our freedom.

Do you understand yet why causal necessity is not a meaningful constraint upon our normal freedoms?

(Note: the spelling is "Merriam-Webster")

''An action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents. '

That quote seems to be saying that causal necessity is the same as a guy holding a gun to your head. That is obviously incorrect. A guy holding a gun to your head makes you do things you do not want to do. Causal necessity doesn't normally make you do anything that you don't want to do. It is only when it happens to be causally necessary that you encounter the guy with the gun that you are forced to act against your will.

Causal necessity is a constant of both situations. The guy with the gun, or his absence, is the meaningful distinction between the two events.

The logical flaw in the argument is obvious. Only some, not all, causally necessary events are a threat to our ability to decide for ourselves what we will do.

Can you see the flaw? Can I expect you to stop quoting that argument in the future?

What I am saying is simply this:

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

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

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

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

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

Is there anything there that you disagree with?

What you call 'freely chosen' in terms of goals, reasons or interests is not chosen, these things are determined by conditions beyond the control or choice of the individual;

''Human behavior is affected both by genetic inheritance and by experience. The ways in which people develop are shaped by social experience and circumstances within the context of their inherited genetic potential. The scientific question is just how experience and hereditary potential interact in producing human behavior.

Each person is born into a social and cultural setting—family, community, social class, language, religion—and eventually develops many social connections. The characteristics of a child's social setting affect how he or she learns to think and behave, by means of instruction, rewards and punishment, and example. This setting includes home, school, neighborhood, and also, perhaps, local religious and law enforcement agencies. Then there are also the child's mostly informal interactions with friends, other peers, relatives, and the entertainment and news media. How individuals will respond to all these influences, or even which influence will be the most potent, tends not to be predictable.

There is, however, some substantial similarity in how individuals respond to the same pattern of influences—that is, to being raised in the same culture. Furthermore, culturally induced behavior patterns, such as speech patterns, body language, and forms of humor, become so deeply imbedded in the human mind that they often operate without the individuals themselves being fully aware of them.''

A lovely description of how we are all influenced by many factors as we grow from childhood to adulthood. Most of these factors are beyond our control. But the many things that we did not control cannot be used to support the claim that all factors are beyond our control. For example, we control what we choose from the menu at the restaurant. Each deliberate act is due to our own choosing, which makes us responsible for them. That's why the waiter brings us the bill.