Compatibilism: What's that About?

[pood]

BS. I am supporting the proposition that it is the state of the brain, neural architecture, state and condition, that determines behaviour, not free will.

Correct, except for the last clause after the final comma, “not free will.” Drop that final three-word clause, and you’re correct.

Since I AM my brain, it follows that “neural architecture, state and condition” that determines behavior is ME determining my behavior. That IS compatibilist free will.

Jarhyn is right, your real target is libertarian, not compatibilist, free will.

The libertarian and the hard determinist both essentially say that “I” must be free of “me” to have free will — a logical absurdity. The difference between the two is that the hard determinist correctly maintains that it is impossible for “I” to be free of “me,” whereas the libertarian incorrectly argues that “I” can be free of “me.”

The compatibilist comes along and simply points out that whereas the hard determinist is correct to say that “I” cannot be free of “me,” he is incorrect to hold that this precludes free will, for it only precludes the libertarian variety of it.

You don't get to choose your state and condition. Your state and condition 'chooses' you, your proclivities, thoughts and actions. The mere token of it being 'you' does not equate to free will. It has nothing to do with will (which has its role to play), yet alone woopy do 'free will,' no less.

But I AM my state and condition — the notion that having to “choose” this state and coindition is incohrent and superfluous. If, as you said, “it is the state of the brain, neural architecture, state and condition, that determines behavior,” and if you are not a dualist, then you agree that the above statement reduces to, “I determine my beheavior,” and I point out again that this is compatibilist free will.

I would note that this discussion is now dispersed across THREE different threads. It would be ever so much more convenient if the main discussants could stick to one thread, but I suppose that is up to the state and conditions of your brains (i.e., it is up to YOU).

 

[pood]

IOW, I don’t need to choose my state and condtion, since I AM that state and condition. All I need, to have free will, is to choose what I will do, free of coercion or restrraint.

 

[pood]

The state and condition of my brain compelled my legs to walk into the restaurant yesterday.

The state and condition of the waiter’s brain forced his arm to deposit a menu before me. The Big Bang made the state and condition of my brain study the various pseudo-choices, since it was predetermined that the state and condition of my brain would “choose” bacon and eggs. The “choice” made, the waiter, the state and condition of his brain set in concrete by the fact that a tiny, dense fireball exploded 13.8 billion years ago, came to me like a marionette on wires and set down my food before me. The state and condition of my brain forced me to eat.

Later the state and condition of the waiter’s brain asked the state and condition of my brain whether the bill should be presented to my neurons or to the Big Bang. Either way “I” was off the hook and got to eat for free.

 

[Jarhyn]

Columnar organization was described in 1957. (https://journals.physiology.org/doi/pdf/10.1152/jn.1957.20.4.408

Organizing principles were studies and theories were constructed from that time forward.

HTM is an AI construct that attempts to find analogs in observed neuroanatomy and brain function. HTM is not derived from brain function nor does not reflect how the brain works. For you to make that claim you'd have to be able to model actual brain function, cortex, midbrain, Llwherever.

HTMs are not specifically about columnar organization. They are about refractory period, which indicates that indeed you don't know what they are.

The reason they are important is because the advance happened around neural refractory period, not columnar organization.

It is these refractory periods, the temporal component of the neuron, that really brings it closer to human neural function. As it is, most teams developing this technology, are developing it by vigorously reverse engineering the human brain.

I don't need to reverse engineer a whole brain, though, for my points. I just need to prove: instructions, interpreters, and static analysis happen in machines built of switches, and show both machines are constructions of switches. I don't need to show how all the switches come together for both, just one or the other.

Then I need to show that the neurons in our head are capable of implementing all the switch types and then some. This is where HTMs come in, since the temporal component allows OR and NOT logics to arise, which are important for building more interesting systemic truth and state efficiently.

This is why you need to understand how neurons and meat can be observed as doing the same thing as the metal, once the basic pieces of free will are observed.

There are two issues here: first, "does determinism rule out free will?"

Well, computers certainly have all the pieces of compatibilist free will, just not generally automated all together.

Humans clearly have the ability to do anything the metal can and then some.

So, that eliminates your core premise.

Then you are just left with special pleading and no-true-scotsman.

Therefore because the metal implies compatibilist free will, as the meat is more capable than the metal, the meat has compatibilist free will.

I never said HTM was about columnar organization. I hinted that cortical structural organization was discovered and specified in 1957 by Mountcastle from NCU for the Somatosensory and, as it turns out, the entire sensory and association cortex. Weve all know about various refractory periods in neural information architecture ever since I entered college in the sixties. It comes with the neural chemistry of information transmission in biological systems. You should have gotten I knew such since I told you about my masters and dissertation experiments were detection resolution and transmission of acoustic information in the ascending NS.

You just can't accept that anyone knew anything about how the brain worked until some programmer digitally modelled a HTM biologically limited brain fart.

Your metal to meat attempt at proof of will ain't. Information is neither metal nor meat. And logic isn't material. What you need is an experiment that fetches objective material from subjective conjecture.

You assumed columnar organization was what I was talking about and it was not.

At any rate, I've shown all the elements necessary for compatibilist free will in systems of metal and electrons.

You are the hard determinist between us. Just the fact that free will's elements exist at all, regardless of whether in meat, flush your hard determinism down the toilet.

Proving the existence of the process in meat is just a nicety; you are the one nonsensically claiming that meat capable of far richer behavior than the metal is somehow unable to do the things the metal does.

No. I assumed you meant HTM which I had already looked up and provided  Hierarchical Temporal Memory reference for you to verify your thinking with what I found.

The theory took from biology some organization of cortex and other signal structures such as Hippocampus and neural tissues such as the pyramidal cell. All I did was note Neuroscientists had already found several kinds of organization among cortical sells such as the six column organization of with innervation arriving at levels three and four in those arrays by 1957.

You cellular model is temporally linked which I might suggest that attribute too had already been discovered and studied by 1965.

Living stuff didn't begin with meat, it was plant and algae related. Meat is something you thought was cute, but I think is both inaccurate and cumbersome. Leaving that aside chemical structure doesn't define life. And life is not what you characterize it to be. Those who take Physiological Psychology have good stories about scientific misadventure such as Cyril Burt finding a Burt face recognition cell in cats (another time).

BTW I've already many times correctly identified will, consciousness, and choice as subjective constructions. You've have never shown me other than a model of subjective will which is also subjectively based. A model is not a material thing. You can make something act like the will you conceive but you can't specify the actual material basis for it beyond implementation of models. Models are models, farts are farts, and Alice doesn't live here any more. Not material.

No, you've called objective pieces of observable processes "subjective" because your religion demands it must be so.

It's pretty objective that I can take a plan, shove it into a machine, and know before it executes (through static analysis, a process done by human brains; unit testing, an observable pre-test on success condition of model) whether it will succeed in accomplishing some goal, which is an observably held variable to a CHOICE function, the choice function being on a set of alternative general futures and the goal defining some objective "success criterion" of the operation of the choice function on those alternative, general futures as would result from a series of actions.

Next Step prediction is in fact one of the core functional examples of Numenta's NuPic.CORE HTM. It's clearly "something machines can do".

We are our brains, our brains operate choice functions across generalized alternative futures.

Once I make a choice, I often look at it really hard a second time, and oftentimes I throw it away and go back for my second pick. Sometimes, I catch myself having a funny feeling that something is hinky with the plan, that if I did this I would not have thought my cunning plan through.

These feelings are objectively happening. They are naught but the activity of neurons in my head, all meat machinery and no more. So they are clearly to do with the material state of some object, and so objective.

But, I persist, until I see a flaw, or it resolves all the way to the goal, regardless of all the things that could probably go wrong. At least I thought it through.

If I see flaws, I go through to the second choice plan...

This process can take minutes, or hours, or days. Occasionally years.

And then if I have exhausted my plans, I consider which consequences I am most comfortable with.

These all predicate only on observable, extent choice functions.

They operate before the outcome is known! Before the outcome is entirely knowable from beyond the horizons that exist around their knowledge.

And if one has the information to do so, an outside observer can objectively be told that plan and objectively see that it will objectively not work, or moreover they take information, do some next step predictions, and the choice function says "don't let them" then leverage starts and it becomes non-polynomial, and hard to calculate but still a "real problem".

This is the context of compatibilist free will.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

That the brain acts according to its physical makeup is not a sufficient condition to qualify as free will.

If the brain, acting according to its physical makeup, decides for itself to order the salad instead of the steak, then that is sufficient to qualify as free will.

Neural architecture and agency, therefore free will, is not enough to prove the proposition.

Are you speaking of this proposition:
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.

Or just P1?

If we are said to have 'free will,' will itself must play a crucial role in the decision-making process. It doesn't.

Okay, let's go over the role of will:
Step 1. An issue requires a decision.
Step 2. The decision sets the will to perform a specific action.
Step 3. The action may result in an other issue, in which case, perform step 1 through 4.
Step 4. If all issues are resolved, then exit until we encounter a new issue, then start again.

1a. The first issue is that it is dinner time and the gang is hungry.
2a. So we decide we will go to a restaurant.
3a. We enter the restaurant and encounter the issue of the menu.
1b. The menu offers us a variety of possibilities for dinner.
2b. We narrow our choices to the steak and the salad, and then decide the salad would be best.
3b. We tell the waiter "I will have the salad, please".
4b. We eat the salad and pay the bill, resolving the meal, returning to 3a with no further issues.
4a. We exit the restaurant and wonder what we might do next (1).

The will to have dinner at a restaurant caused us to walk into the restaurant and confront the issue of what to order.
The will to have the salad caused us to tell the waiter "I will have the salad, please", and then to eat the salad and pay for it.

Does this clear up what "will" is about?

Will plays no part in the unconscious information processing activity that leads, in microseconds, to the experience of thought, deliberation, decision making and the will to act.

The will to have dinner at the restaurant is the source of the unconscious information processing that followed.

Consider the events leading up to the Libet experiment. A potential subject was asked if they would participate in the experiment. They thought it over and decided that they would volunteer to participate. That willingness led them to show up at the appointed time, willingly listen to the researchers instructions and willingly comply with them as he performed the tasks on the apparatus. This conscious will was the necessary cause of the subsequent unconscious information processing measured by the EEG and EMG.

If will plays no part in regulating decision making,

"Will" leads to the encounter with the issue to be decided. The decision-making results in the next will. It is the decision making that regulates the will, not the other way round.

and no alternate actions are possible, will simply cannot be defined as free.

And we've been over this many, many times. Just look at the menu. Every item there is a possibility, something that we can order if we choose to. One of them will be the single inevitable dinner that we will choose. All of the others will be the many possible dinners that we could have chosen instead.

The fact that we would not choose the steak does not contradict the fact that we could have chosen the steak. It is just the simple logic of the language.

Free, by definition means that any one of number of possibilities can be realized....which, according to the given definition of determinism, is not possible.

Every item on the menu can be realized. Only one item on the menu will be realized.

 

[Jarhyn]

Nobody said they do. It's irrelevant.

The fact that the future is behind a horizon for us is certainly relevant.

It is exactly the horizons and limitations of our knowledge that are relevant to the fact that we are locally stochastic processing engines. That is entirely relevant to whether WE in our operation see "choices".

Once all that other shit of the past has conspired to condense in a single locality, it is not that other shit anymore, it is the locality, and the locality is where decision and choice happens. Because I am the thing, the locality, I say "I make the decision". Because I as the locality have a number of alternatives in the bin, I say "I have choices". Because I have in this same locality a process that can evaluate those decisions beyond their initial genesis, I can say "my will is free". Because I can transmit the plan for external analysis, I have done so objectively.

In our operation of seeing choices, we have to operate choice functions. Those choice function operations can be evaluated on their success criterion (re: unit test) outside of live execution meaning they are objectively capable of "evaluation of freedom to goal".

These are the requirements for compatibilist free will. Therefore compatibilist free will.

does not relate to cognition.

The core process of cognition does not relate to cognition? That's just silly.

At any rate, you seem to wish that humans are somehow fundamentally incapable of doing what a computer observably does, and what we observably do through such.

As Marvin is keen to point out, there are many things which I did not choose for myself, but when those things became a part of myself, only I myself choose on that basis. Because part of the things that become a part of myself are... From myself, it seems trivially true that the brain alters itself.

But moreover, I've made a machine that alters itself the way the brain does so I can absolutely attest to the fact the brain alters itself.

You have all the pieces you seem to demand, but I expect the real reason you don't want to accept that people have and make choices, even to be evil and do terrible things, is entirely separate from what you claim here as your basis for rejecting personal responsibility for personal decisionmaking.

We are not talking about stochastic, probabilistic or random events....

We really are, though. First off, our universe has these. The fact that you can't seem to understand and wrap your head around that is not my problem.

Second, the existence and in fact NECESSITY that all actors contained in all systems are limited to stochastically modeled behavior absolutely creates the geometry where "choice function" operates on "alternate general futures" and selects one from many before that future is now, based on an evaluation of success.

Choice function can select both the future and the goal.

The choice happens within the brain, as function of it of that brain. I am my brain (really a subregion of it): I am the one making the choice.

And if that choice I make is objectively not going to result in the alternate general future I selected, then my will is objectively not "free". If it does, my will was "free".

You just really don't want to have to accept the consequences of having free will, do you?

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Try to brush up on the nature of decision making by referring to neuroscience.

Unfortunately, your link on "the human brain" is another 404 page not found. But let's deal with the quote anyway.

''When it comes to the human brain, even the simplest of acts can be counter-intuitive and deceptively complicated. For example, try stretching your arm.

Nerves in the limb send messages back to your brain, but the subjective experience you have of stretching isn't due to these signals. The feeling that you willed your arm into motion, and the realisation that you moved it at all, are both the result of an area at the back of your brain called the posterior parietal cortex. This region helped to produce the intention to move, and predicted what the movement would feel like, all before you twitched a single muscle.

Michel Desmurget and a team of French neuroscientists arrived at this conclusion by stimulating the brains of seven people with electrodes, while they underwent brain surgery under local anaesthetic. When Desmurget stimulated the parietal cortex, the patients felt a strong desire to move their arms, hands, feet or lips, although they never actually did. Stronger currents cast a powerful illusion, convincing the patients that they had actually moved, even though recordings of electrical activity in their muscles said otherwise. ''

Yes. It is all in the brain. Where else would we experience what we experience? And if you directly stimulate specific parts of the brain that are related to certain experiences, you can create those experiences artificially. Your patient will report the artificial experience as if it were real. This would be a small peek into the world of the "brain-in-a-vat".

On the other hand, in the absence of such manipulation, the patient's experiences will generally reflect what is really happening. For example, in the restaurant, we will have the experience of reading the menu as we are actually reading the menu. The possible dinners on the menu will not be illusions. And when we consider what having the steak tonight might do to our health, after having the sausage and eggs for breakfast and the double cheeseburger for lunch, that will not be an illusion either. Nor will it be an illusion when we settle for the salad instead and observe ourselves telling the waiter, "I will have the salad please".

Neural manipulation would be an example of an undue influence upon our choice. And most people would consider it to be the very opposite of a freely chosen will. For proof of this, see the study "It’s OK if ‘my brain made me do it’: People’s intuitions about free will and neuroscientific prediction". Here is the abstract. I've highlighted the statement regarding manipulation:

Abstract​

In recent years, a number of prominent scientists have argued that free will is an illusion, appealing to evidence demonstrating that information about brain activity can be used to predict behavior before people are aware of having made a decision. These scientists claim that the possibility of perfect prediction based on neural information challenges the ordinary understanding of free will. In this paper we provide evidence suggesting that most people do not view the possibility of neuro-prediction as a threat to free will unless it also raises concerns about manipulation of the agent’s behavior. In Experiment 1 two scenarios described future brain imaging technology that allows perfect prediction of decisions and actions based on earlier neural activity, and this possibility did not undermine most people’s attributions of free will or responsibility, except in the scenario that also allowed manipulation. In Experiment 2 the scenarios increased the salience of the physicalist implications of neuro-prediction, while in Experiment 3 the scenarios suggested dualism, with perfect prediction by mindreaders. The patterns of results for these two experiments were similar to the results in Experiment 1, suggesting that participants do not understand free will to require specific metaphysical conditions regarding the mind–body relation. Most people seem to understand free will in a way that is not threatened by perfect prediction based on neural information, suggesting that they believe that just because “my brain made me do it,” that does not mean that I didn’t do it of my own free will.

So, I hope that clears up the issue of neural manipulation for you.

''Our thoughts, though abstract and vaporous in form, are determined by the actions of specific neuronal circuits in our brains. The interdisciplinary field known as “decision neuroscience” is uncovering those circuits, thereby mapping thinking on a cellular level. Although still a young field, research in this area has exploded in the last decade, with findings suggesting it is possible to parse out the complexity of thinking into its individual components and decipher how they are integrated when we ponder. Eventually, such findings will lead to a better understanding of a wide range of mental disorders, from depression to schizophrenia, as well as explain how exactly we make the multitude of decisions that ultimately shape our destiny.''

Hurrah! A working link! But wait, everything we need is right there in quote. There is now actually "decision neuroscience". I wonder what it is that they study? Could it be us making choices? Yes, I think it could.

And why are they doing this? In order to "explain how exactly we make the multitude of decisions that ultimately shape our destiny.'' Hmm, sounds like they believe it is actually us, our very own choices, and not causal necessity, that will control our destiny.

And, as always, thanks again for supporting the compatibilist position.

Quote:
"And the electrical activity in these neurons is known to reflect the delivery of this chemical, dopamine, to the frontal cortex. Dopamine is one of several neurotransmitters thought to regulate emotional response, and is suspected of playing a central role in schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, and drug abuse," Montague says. "We think these dopamine neurons are making guesses at likely future rewards. The neuron is constantly making a guess at the time and magnitude of the reward."

"If what it expects doesn't arrive, it doesn't change its firing. If it expects a certain amount of reward at a particular time and the reward is actually higher, it's surprised by that and increases its delivery of dopamine," he explains. "And if it expects a certain level (of reward) and it actually gets less, it decreases its level of dopamine delivery."

Thus, says Montague, "what we see is that the dopamine neurons change the way they make electrical impulses in exactly the same way the animal changes his behavior. The way the neurons change their predictions correlates with the behavioral changes of the monkey almost exactly."

Whether one feels ''compelled'' or not, the decision making process itself is determined by the immediate condition of the neural circuitry (connectivity) and its own immediate information state (input and memory) in the instance of decision making (neural information processing), and not an act of conscious will. The latter is a consequence of the former, therefore cannot be described as being 'free' under any circumstances.

I disabled the link on the word "Quote" because this one did not produce a 404 but instead seemed to be stuck in some kind of loop that never returned a page. I shut it down because I had no idea what it was doing. But, let's deal with the quote anyway.

The first part seems to be describing an experiment in operant conditioning. Montague (whoever he is) seems to be liberally using figurative language (he has the individual neurons making "guesses").

I think his point is that our choices are influenced by dopamine flow, something that can be altered by certain drugs. But, unless it is manipulated artificially, it is managed internally by the brain's own normal processes. Montague points out that we normally have no conscious control over the flow of dopamine, but I suspect there will be meditation experts who will argue that we can, by guided thought, actually influence how we currently feel.

There are feelings we have about our own behavior. If we are doing something that we think is wrong, we are likely to feel guilty. If we are doing something helpful to others, then we are likely to feel satisfied. These feelings punish or reward our behavior, and the expectation of these feelings can alter what we consciously choose to do.

On the other hand, we can ignore these feelings, and if we do so repeatedly we may disassociate them from that behavior (see extinction, under operant conditioning). The psychopath, of course, has a genetic advantage in becoming numb to them.

At the end, Montague is suggesting that free will must be free of the brain's normal functioning, another impossible, "fake", freedom.

As always, free will is when we decide for ourselves (with our own neurons and our own dopamine and all the other functional elements of our own brain) what we will do, while free of coercion and undue influence. And as the article I posted from says, "It's okay if my brain made me do it".

 

[fromderinside]

No. I assumed you meant HTM which I had already looked up and provided  Hierarchical Temporal Memory reference for you to verify your thinking with what I found.

The theory took from biology some organization of cortex and other signal structures such as Hippocampus and neural tissues such as the pyramidal cell. All I did was note Neuroscientists had already found several kinds of organization among cortical sells such as the six column organization of with innervation arriving at levels three and four in those arrays by 1957.

You cellular model is temporally linked which I might suggest that attribute too had already been discovered and studied by 1965.

Living stuff didn't begin with meat, it was plant and algae related. Meat is something you thought was cute, but I think is both inaccurate and cumbersome. Leaving that aside chemical structure doesn't define life. And life is not what you characterize it to be. Those who take Physiological Psychology have good stories about scientific misadventure such as Cyril Burt finding a Burt face recognition cell in cats (another time).

BTW I've already many times correctly identified will, consciousness, and choice as subjective constructions. You've have never shown me other than a model of subjective will which is also subjectively based. A model is not a material thing. You can make something act like the will you conceive but you can't specify the actual material basis for it beyond implementation of models. Models are models, farts are farts, and Alice doesn't live here any more. Not material.

No, you've called objective pieces of observable processes "subjective" because your religion demands it must be so.

It's pretty objective that I can take a plan, shove it into a machine, and know before it executes (through static analysis, a process done by human brains; unit testing, an observable pre-test on success condition of model) whether it will succeed in accomplishing some goal, which is an observably held variable to a CHOICE function, the choice function being on a set of alternative general futures and the goal defining some objective "success criterion" of the operation of the choice function on those alternative, general futures as would result from a series of actions.

Next Step prediction is in fact one of the core functional examples of Numenta's NuPic.CORE HTM. It's clearly "something machines can do".

We are our brains, our brains operate choice functions across generalized alternative futures.

Once I make a choice, I often look at it really hard a second time, and oftentimes I throw it away and go back for my second pick. Sometimes, I catch myself having a funny feeling that something is hinky with the plan, that if I did this I would not have thought my cunning plan through.

These feelings are objectively happening. They are naught but the activity of neurons in my head, all meat machinery and no more. So they are clearly to do with the material state of some object, and so objective.

But, I persist, until I see a flaw, or it resolves all the way to the goal, regardless of all the things that could probably go wrong. At least I thought it through.

If I see flaws, I go through to the second choice plan...

This process can take minutes, or hours, or days. Occasionally years.

And then if I have exhausted my plans, I consider which consequences I am most comfortable with.

These all predicate only on observable, extent choice functions.

They operate before the outcome is known! Before the outcome is entirely knowable from beyond the horizons that exist around their knowledge.

And if one has the information to do so, an outside observer can objectively be told that plan and objectively see that it will objectively not work, or moreover they take information, do some next step predictions, and the choice function says "don't let them" then leverage starts and it becomes non-polynomial, and hard to calculate but still a "real problem".

This is the context of compatibilist free will.

Your argument starts and is terminated by "If I see flaws I go to a second choice plan."

"I SEE" is subjective!!!

These feelings (yours) are objectively happening. They are naught but the activity of neurons in my head, all meat machinery and no more. So they are clearly to do with the material state of some object, and so objective.(bzzzzt. Nope)

Read. It's another sez U!

Choice is another roadblock to your argument. There's a lot of self checking going on in your objective defense blather. To be objective it needs to be materially verified. Where are the verifiable material elements in choice, consciousness, and mind?

Let me put it to you straight on. Using a plan that depends on "I see" produce observable results is not an objective plan. If the pan is based on "I sees" and "I thinks" they must be substantiated by material variables beyond the "I see" and "I think" results to be called objective beyond the subjective dimensions of the constructed plan. All you are saying with "I see" and "I think" is "it is my plan and I sticking to it." Good for you its subjective.

 

[DBT]

Nobody said they do. It's irrelevant.

The fact that the future is behind a horizon for us is certainly relevant.

It is exactly the horizons and limitations of our knowledge that are relevant to the fact that we are locally stochastic processing engines. That is entirely relevant to whether WE in our operation see "choices".

Once all that other shit of the past has conspired to condense in a single locality, it is not that other shit anymore, it is the locality, and the locality is where decision and choice happens. Because I am the thing, the locality, I say "I make the decision". Because I as the locality have a number of alternatives in the bin, I say "I have choices". Because I have in this same locality a process that can evaluate those decisions beyond their initial genesis, I can say "my will is free". Because I can transmit the plan for external analysis, I have done so objectively.

In our operation of seeing choices, we have to operate choice functions. Those choice function operations can be evaluated on their success criterion (re: unit test) outside of live execution meaning they are objectively capable of "evaluation of freedom to goal".

These are the requirements for compatibilist free will. Therefore compatibilist free will.

does not relate to cognition.

The core process of cognition does not relate to cognition? That's just silly.

At any rate, you seem to wish that humans are somehow fundamentally incapable of doing what a computer observably does, and what we observably do through such.

As Marvin is keen to point out, there are many things which I did not choose for myself, but when those things became a part of myself, only I myself choose on that basis. Because part of the things that become a part of myself are... From myself, it seems trivially true that the brain alters itself.

But moreover, I've made a machine that alters itself the way the brain does so I can absolutely attest to the fact the brain alters itself.

You have all the pieces you seem to demand, but I expect the real reason you don't want to accept that people have and make choices, even to be evil and do terrible things, is entirely separate from what you claim here as your basis for rejecting personal responsibility for personal decisionmaking.

We are not talking about stochastic, probabilistic or random events....

We really are, though. First off, our universe has these. The fact that you can't seem to understand and wrap your head around that is not my problem.

What you don't seem to get is that the compatibilist argument is directly related to determinism, not stochastic, not probabilistic, not random.

So, whether these are a part of the universe or not is irrelevant to the issue of compatibilism. And the argument in general.

This has been pointed out time and time again, yet you still trot these out proudly like you have made a point.

It's as if everyone is talking about the rules of football, but Jarhyn chimes in and keeps banging on about the rules of Golf.

 

[DBT]

Your example is essentially an expression of ''acting in accord to one's will without external force or coercion' as the definition of compatibilist free will.

Free will is when someone decides for themselves what they will do while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. These include any significant mental illness that impairs a person's ability to perceive reality, to reason, or to resist an impulse.

So, it is not just external factors but it can also be internal factors that have an extraordinary influence upon our ability to choose for ourselves what we will do.

That is not free will, it is the label that is being applied by compatibilists.

Free will - by definition - (freedom + will) requires non necessitated agency through the means of will.

Neural networks acquiring and processing information do not work on the principle of will.

Rather than will or freedom, the brain functionality is determined by an interaction of neural architecture, information input and memory function.

Applying the ideological label 'free will' doesn't make brain functionality a matter of free will.

Function determined by neural structure is not free will.

 

[DBT]

BS. I am supporting the proposition that it is the state of the brain, neural architecture, state and condition, that determines behaviour, not free will.

Correct, except for the last clause after the final comma, “not free will.” Drop that final three-word clause, and you’re correct.

Since I AM my brain, it follows that “neural architecture, state and condition” that determines behavior is ME determining my behavior. That IS compatibilist free will.

Jarhyn is right, your real target is libertarian, not compatibilist, free will.

The libertarian and the hard determinist both essentially say that “I” must be free of “me” to have free will — a logical absurdity. The difference between the two is that the hard determinist correctly maintains that it is impossible for “I” to be free of “me,” whereas the libertarian incorrectly argues that “I” can be free of “me.”

The compatibilist comes along and simply points out that whereas the hard determinist is correct to say that “I” cannot be free of “me,” he is incorrect to hold that this precludes free will, for it only precludes the libertarian variety of it.

You don't get to choose your state and condition. Your state and condition 'chooses' you, your proclivities, thoughts and actions. The mere token of it being 'you' does not equate to free will. It has nothing to do with will (which has its role to play), yet alone woopy do 'free will,' no less.

But I AM my state and condition — the notion that having to “choose” this state and coindition is incohrent and superfluous. If, as you said, “it is the state of the brain, neural architecture, state and condition, that determines behavior,” and if you are not a dualist, then you agree that the above statement reduces to, “I determine my beheavior,” and I point out again that this is compatibilist free will.

A tree is its own state and condition. A tree acts according to its own state and condition. Everything that exists functions according to its state and condition. This has nothing to do with free will.

The definition of freedom is to be free from coercion, force, constraint and necessitation.


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 may be free from coercion, force or external constraint, but we are never from necessitation, because our very makeup - which we cannot choose - genes, environment, brain state and condition, etc, that determines our thoughts and actions.

Necessitation is not freedom, therefore necessitation does not equate to free will.


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

 

[DBT]

IOW, I don’t need to choose my state and condtion, since I AM that state and condition. All I need, to have free will, is to choose what I will do, free of coercion or restrraint.

That which is not chosen is not free. To be free requires realizable alternatives. Being in a state that you have not chosen does not equate to freedom of will. A prisoner locked in solitary is not in possession of, or exercising free will just because he is what he is, and that happens to be his state and condition. Free will requires more than just state and condition.

 

[DBT]

That the brain acts according to its physical makeup is not a sufficient condition to qualify as free will.

If the brain, acting according to its physical makeup, decides for itself to order the salad instead of the steak, then that is sufficient to qualify as free will.

Neural architecture and agency, therefore free will, is not enough to prove the proposition.

Are you speaking of this proposition:
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.

Or just P1?

Basically P1. It overlooks inner necessitation and the errors flow from that crucial but conveniently neglected detail.

Inner necessitation eliminates the claim for freedom of will.

If decision making and associated will is necessitated, it cannot be defined as being free.

If someone must necessarily do x at time y, they are not free to do otherwise. Not being able to do otherwise, they cannot will otherwise.

Unable to do otherwise, or will otherwise, their will is not free.

Therefore, determinism and free will are incompatible.

If we are said to have 'free will,' will itself must play a crucial role in the decision-making process. It doesn't.

Okay, let's go over the role of will:
Step 1. An issue requires a decision.
Step 2. The decision sets the will to perform a specific action.
Step 3. The action may result in an other issue, in which case, perform step 1 through 4.
Step 4. If all issues are resolved, then exit until we encounter a new issue, then start again.

But it's not the will that sets about making the decision or performing the related action. That is the role and function of neural networks.

Will plays no part in information acquisition and processing that determines the decision made and action taken, it's only at the tail end of the process that the will to act is formed as a conscious prompt to carry out an action.

1a. The first issue is that it is dinner time and the gang is hungry.
2a. So we decide we will go to a restaurant.
3a. We enter the restaurant and encounter the issue of the menu.
1b. The menu offers us a variety of possibilities for dinner.
2b. We narrow our choices to the steak and the salad, and then decide the salad would be best.
3b. We tell the waiter "I will have the salad, please".
4b. We eat the salad and pay the bill, resolving the meal, returning to 3a with no further issues.
4a. We exit the restaurant and wonder what we might do next (1).

The will to have dinner at a restaurant caused us to walk into the restaurant and confront the issue of what to order.
The will to have the salad caused us to tell the waiter "I will have the salad, please", and then to eat the salad and pay for it.

Does this clear up what "will" is about?

The nature of the underlying means and mechanisms that make all of this possible is still being ignored.

''When it comes to the human brain, even the simplest of acts can be counter-intuitive and deceptively complicated. For example, try stretching your arm. Nerves in the limb send messages back to your brain, but the subjective experience you have of stretching isn't due to these signals. The feeling that you willed your arm into motion, and the realization that you moved it at all, are both the result of an area at the back of your brain called the posterior parietal cortex. This region helped to produce the intention to move, and predicted what the movement would feel like, all before you twitched a single muscle.''

Will plays no part in the unconscious information processing activity that leads, in microseconds, to the experience of thought, deliberation, decision making and the will to act.

The will to have dinner at the restaurant is the source of the unconscious information processing that followed.

Prior to that came needs and wants, the need to eat, wanting to eat, eating out, the desire for companionship with friends or family, etc.

Antecedents. Needs and wants. Tastes developed through experience, past pleasures....

Consider the events leading up to the Libet experiment. A potential subject was asked if they would participate in the experiment. They thought it over and decided that they would volunteer to participate. That willingness led them to show up at the appointed time, willingly listen to the researchers instructions and willingly comply with them as he performed the tasks on the apparatus. This conscious will was the necessary cause of the subsequent unconscious information processing measured by the EEG and EMG.

Willingness is not the same as free will. Everyone acts for their own reasons. Decisions are a cost to benefit determination. Rational decision making, not free will. (Farah, et al.)

If will plays no part in regulating decision making,

"Will" leads to the encounter with the issue to be decided. The decision-making results in the next will. It is the decision making that regulates the will, not the other way round.

Neural networks regulate both decision making and will. A Neural network is the sole agent of thought, deliberation and action. It all happens milliseconds before our thoughts become conscious and our muscles twitch.

and no alternate actions are possible, will simply cannot be defined as free.

And we've been over this many, many times. Just look at the menu. Every item there is a possibility, something that we can order if we choose to. One of them will be the single inevitable dinner that we will choose. All of the others will be the many possible dinners that we could have chosen instead.

The fact that we would not choose the steak does not contradict the fact that we could have chosen the steak. It is just the simple logic of the language.

It shouldn't come up time and time again, yet here we are, and it does. Just because there are a number of items on a menu doesn't mean that we can choose an option that is not determined in that instance in time.

Only one option is realizable: the determined option.

Free, by definition means that any one of number of possibilities can be realized....which, according to the given definition of determinism, is not possible.

Every item on the menu can be realized. Only one item on the menu will be realized.

Every item can be realized, just not by any particular person in any given instance in time, where only one option is open, the determined option.

We are talking about determinism.

 

[Jarhyn]

"I SEE" is subjective!!!

The flaws are objective, and it is the flaws that make the will free or not. They are there whether or not I see them.

This fact is why many people execute objecticelu bad plans, and don't end up with their goals.That you can't understand this is sad, and problematic.

Read. It's another sez U!

The only other option here is "it's happening because magic and faeries or whatever."

So it's either "sez me these feelings are happening as a result of objecticely mechanical behavior of neurons" or "it's dualism happening, with something magical outside reality".

I reject your magical outside reality bullshit.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

That is not free will, it is the label that is being applied by compatibilists.

Sorry, but we've already dispelled that myth several times now. You can pick up any general dictionary and find both the operational notion of free will and the philosophical notion of free will. For example:

Free Will
Mirriam-Webster on-line:
1: voluntary choice or decision 'I do this of my own free will'
2: freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

Oxford English Dictionary:
1.a. Spontaneous or unconstrained will; unforced choice; (also) inclination to act without suggestion from others. Esp. in of one's (own) free will and similar expressions.
2. The power of an individual to make free choices, not determined by divine predestination, the laws of physical causality, fate, etc.

Wiktionary:
1. A person's natural inclination; unforced choice.
2. (philosophy) The ability to choose one's actions, or determine what reasons are acceptable motivation for actions, without predestination, fate etc.

The number 1 definition is operational. The number 2 definition is philosophical.

You can also see the terms I use to summarize operational free will in Wiktionary:
Wiktionary

coercion
1. Actual or threatened force for the purpose of compelling action by another person; the act of coercing.
2. (law) Use of physical or moral force to compel a person to do something, or to abstain from doing something, thereby depriving that person of the exercise of free will.

undue
1. Excessive; going beyond that what is natural or sufficient.
2. That which ought not to be done; illegal; unjustified.

influence
1. The power to affect, control or manipulate something or someone; the ability to change the development of fluctuating things such as conduct, thoughts or decisions.
2. An action exerted by a person or thing with such power on another to cause change.

You can also see several studies that investigate what ordinary persons (those not infected with the philosophical paradox) think free will is about:

The first is called, "Surveying Freedom: Folk Intuitions about Free Will and Moral Responsibility" by Eddy Nahmias, Stephen Morris, Thomas Nadelhoffer, and Jason Turner. It is located at http://www.brown.uk.com/brownlibrary/nahmias.pdf

The second is called, "From Uncaused Will to Conscious Choice: The Need to Study, Not Speculate About People’s Folk Concept of Free Will" by Andrew E. Monroe & Bertram F. Malle. It is located at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13164-009-0010-7

The third is called, "It’s OK if ‘my brain made me do it’: People’s intuitions about free will and neuroscientific prediction", by Eddy Nahmias, Jason Shepard, and Shane Reuter. You'll find it here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027714001462

Free will - by definition - (freedom + will) requires non necessitated agency through the means of will.

Only the "philosophical" definition requires "freedom from causal necessity". And, since "freedom from causal necessity" implies "freedom from cause and effect", the definition is paradoxical and thus invalid. The simple fact is that freedom requires a world in which we can reliably cause effects, because without that ability we would have no freedoms to do anything at all.

Neural networks acquiring and processing information do not work on the principle of will.

The modern attack upon operational free will is through neuroscience. But neuroscience simply confirms what we've known for years. Our brains are the source of our decision-making. Our thoughts and feelings, our minds, are functions of the specialized areas of our evolved neurological infrastructure.

And our ability to decide for ourselves what we will do is one of those functions. There is no "either it is this or that". There is no "either it is the brain or it is us". When the brain is deciding what we will do, it is us deciding what we will do.

The only way to get to your "either this or that" is by invoking some myth of dualism.

Rather than will or freedom, the brain functionality is determined by an interaction of neural architecture, information input and memory function.

There is no "rather than", there is no "either this or that". When our brain is deciding what we will do, it is us deciding what we will do.

Applying the ideological label 'free will' doesn't make brain functionality a matter of free will.

There is no ideology here. Operational free will is based upon the simple observation of people every day deciding for themselves what they will do. Walk into any restaurant. See the people browsing the menu and placing their orders. See the waiter bringing them their dinner. See the waiter holding them responsible for their deliberate act by bringing them their bill. See the people taking responsibility for their deliberate act by paying the cashier on their way out.

Function determined by neural structure is not free will.

Only the neural function of deciding for ourselves what we will do is referred to as "free will" (a freely chosen will). There are a vast array of other neurological functions which support the person's ability to reliably do other things, like walking, talking, thinking, etc. And we may choose to do any of those things. There are also a vast array of other things going on neurologically that happen autonomously or reflexively or instinctually, which we do not choose, but which also support the person's ability to live.

There are things which we do not choose to do and other things that we do not choose. Free will is about the things that we can choose to do. But, again, it is not an "either this or that", but rather both that are real and meaningful.

 

[fromderinside]

Of course flaws can be observed objectively. But I insist they be tested empirically, by material test carried out publicly, through use of the Scientific Method.

Your own petard.

... "take a plan, shove it into a machine, and know before it executes (through static analysis, a process done by human brains." ... "The only other option here is "it's happening because magic"

Take note:  Scientific method

The scientific method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries). It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation.

 Empiricism

Empiricism emphasizes the role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions.[2]

Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.

What you are saying is you trust your lying eyes to make the right judgement about your plan. Neither Science nor Empiricism suggests that. You go so far as to say your thought overrides experiment.

Scientific method is dependent on actual physical public, publishable, experiment which provides results any and all humans can reproduce and take in and appreciate through their senses. It is not a permission for one to judge because one can sense without material public experiment because they have a brain. It's not enough to have just neurons involved. It has to be public, reviewed by experts, published, viewable and executable by all willing to test the procedure.

If what I just wrote is magic, then yeah. I believe in magic.

We don't depend on our neurons being programmed automatically to determine rightness or wrongness in science. That's what people do when they are shooting the breeze over the fence.

I insist on the above as a minimum standard for objective demonstration.

 

[Jarhyn]

Of course flaws can be observed objectively. But I insist they be by methods be tested empirically, by material test carried out publicly, through use of the Scientific Method.

The test is not what makes it objective.this can be tested empirically, MUST BE, if the universe is a machine of stuff and material.

It's necessity as the result of being an observable function of objects, is what makes it objective.

What you are saying is you trust your lying eyes to make the right judgement about your plan

Yes, I trust my lying eyes, (edit: through academic pursuit of knowledge) because someone else's eyes see the same "lie" (edit: but moreover this merely gives truth to "doubt" as a concept), and I understand well enough the shape of their lies to account for them through doubting my lying eyes, (edit)and often I discover that(/edit) the shape of their lies is too small to impact the predicted future "out of course".

The fact that I can do static analysis and (edit) the anlysis of both branches of deterministically modeled effect can be accounted for and lead to their predicted result, and that the stochastic elements are well bounded, then I can say "objectively observed" and that both are tested, and we can arrive at the same objectively true answer about the feasibility of the plan mean that it is an objective observation.

That I have not had someone else do it makes this no less objective.

The scientific method can be operated by a single person. It doesn't need all that extra infrastructure as publishing and peer review. It needs doubt, held by the observer, over the conclusions.

I could be a single immortal scientist on a planet with no other humans, and use the scientific method to discover more about my world, and it will be just as objectively true.

Edit:
What you seem to be trying to describe is the system of academic peer review. These are an important part of academic pursuit of knowledge. Academic is different from scientific though.

The academic method is no less important than the scientific method. First, it is the basis for understanding that doubt is valuable.

You don't seem to understand how one can doubt themselves. Maybe this is why you do not understand free will.

My initial intuition on this says "from here it should not be hard to reach proof that self-doubt is fundamental to free will".

I'll need to think on that quite a lot.

 

[Jarhyn]

unconscious information processing activity that leads, in microseconds, to the experience of thought, deliberation, decision making and the will to act.

Just this part though...

You call it "unconscious", I call it pre-narrative.

It very much is a conscious decision, it just has not been recorded yet that it happened. The subvocalizations of my thought are superfluous to the fact that I'm doing it, and usually the whole process takes a lot longer than microseconds for me when the decision is not merely "take the next step".

There's a whole process there that you are hand-waving away.

Some decisions I make I've been in the process of making and deliberating on for years.

We are talking about determinism.

No we are talking about "indeterminism". If you want to talk about determinism, you need to go to the thread "Compatibilism" or "escaping causal necessity".

We are talking about the real existence of stochastic actors within systems.

 

[Jarhyn]

Of course flaws can be observed objectively. But I insist they be by methods be tested empirically, by material test carried out publicly, through use of the Scientific Method.

The test is not what makes it objective. This can be tested said empirically, MUST BE, if the universe is a machine of stuff and material.

It's necessity as the result of being an observable function of objects, is what makes it objective.

+it doesn't matter if it is observed by one person or many.

the fact that others can see it, repeat it, is an academic insistence, not a scientific one. /+

What you are saying is you trust your lying eyes to make the right judgement about your plan

Yes, I trust"trust" my lying eyes, +through academic pursuit of knowledge/+ because someone else's eyes see the same "lie" +but moreover this merely gives truth to "doubt" as a concept/+, and I understand well enough the shape of their lies to account for them through doubting my lying eyes, +and often I discover that/+ the shape of their lies is too small to impact the predicted future "out of course".

The fact that I can do static analysis and the anlysis of both branches of deterministically modeled effect can be accounted for and lead to their predicted result, and that the stochastic elements are well bounded, +and I can repeat this observation/+, then I can say "objectively observed" and that both are tested and we can arrive at the same objectively true answer about the feasibility of the plan mean that it is an objective observation.


+I can then cast doubt on myself and say "what determines what is currently stochastic in the model? Can I functionally operate the model to eliminate the need to replace such stochastic effect with deterministic prediction or at least deterministic function under smaller stochastic bounds? And "is the determinism I have observed as deterministic as I think it is? Can I repeat this? So future observations bear under the weight of what system I have observed determines?/+

That I have not had someone else do it makes this no less objective.

The scientific method can be operated by a single person. It doesn't need all that extra infrastructure as publishing and peer review. It needs doubt, held by the observer, over the conclusions +or completenss of a model/+

I could be a single immortal scientist on a planet with no other humans, and use the scientific method to discover more about my world, and it will be just as objectively true.

+What you seem to be trying to describe is the system of academic peer review. These are an important part of academic pursuit of knowledge. Academic is different from scientific though.

The academic method is no less important than the scientific method. First, it is the basis for understanding that doubt is valuable+of oneself/+.

You don't seem to understand how one can doubt themselves. Maybe this is why you do not understand free will.

My initial intuition on this says "from here it should not be hard to reach proof that self-doubt is fundamental to free will".

I'll need to think on that quite a lot./+

I can absolutely doubt myself, and change what I think and recognize my own wrongness, and generally you are more harm than good, @fromderinside

Self-revision is totally within the capabilities of a process.

 

[pood]

Only one option is realizable: the determined option.

Only one option is realIZED, the determined option. What determnines the realIZED option? The state and condition of my brain. What is the state and condition of my brain? It IS me. What, then, determines the one realIZED option?

I do.