Compatibilism: What's that About?

[Marvin Edwards]

Everything you specify is in reference to the individual rather than in reference to reality.

I think that would be another false dichotomy. I'm pretty sure that individuals exist in reality.

 

[Jarhyn]

survival rather than objectivity

Survival is an objective measure. Either the relationship between matter that creates the engine remains as a functional engine or it does not. It is either arranged as an object or it is not.

Survival is an objective goal, and goals are objects within "wills" which are objects whose particular properties will interact with other objects, behavioral engines and which will inevitably drive them towards output.

Both the engine and the script are objects. Both the proteins/enzymes (an engine) in your cells and the DNA (a script) that they read are objects.

Its more about which photons and what frequencies

Photons are objects. Frequencies of their motion are properties those objects have owing to their energy level, additional properties of objects.

But it is also about physics which is limited by what evolution can provide

Physics is not limited by evolution, Evolution is limited by physics...

and no your tongue and analytic substrates can't really verify their outputs with object structure

They create the outputs with their objective structure. Your attempt to inject verification as if double-checking and verification was necessary for collection...

...dance betweenwhat drives evolution and what is reality...

So what drives evolution is not reality?

Indirect detection can never be valid

All detection of everything is indirect. So you are really implying that no detection is valid of anything ever.

Yet again it's a No-True-Scotsman coming from FDI...

All I can say is I know Bayes. Bayes is a friend of mine

Sure he is. Point him my way and maybe we can have a chat. But making a name drop and a hand wave does not establish anything close to an "argument". While we as humans generally don't bother with quantifying error in our sensory input, it does not change the fact that the error in that input is still bounded in predictable ways and capable of being measured, and even validated against other indirect forms of measuring.

 

[fromderinside]

Everything you specify is in reference to the individual rather than in reference to reality.

I think that would be another false dichotomy. I'm pretty sure that individuals exist in reality.

There you go.... again. Humans are real therefore they exist in reality. I'm thunderstruck. Humans are evolved therefore they exist evolutionarily. Reality and evolution are two different causes. Resolve that and you'll find where humans live. Oh, wait. Reality and evolution impose different requirements on humans. Evolution takes advantage of humans not knowing the nature of reality so they evolve based on the principle of survival, a demand that one uses what remains rather than one uses least energy.

It may appear they are the same. But situations driving evolution change based on conditions at hand. That is very different than objective conditions of material reduction which drive the real world. Yet reality provides space for evolution referring to a particular being. One has to do some pretty fancy reduction to get from evolution to reality. Only when one has done so will one understand the difference between evolution drivers and reality drivers.

 

[Jarhyn]

Reality and evolution are two different causes

I guess the one thing that I can accept is that the reality of your evolution, has caused you to lose touch with reality.

Maybe give Bayes my number and maybe he and I can have coffee some time.

Or my email? It's not hard to figure out. I'm on Gmail, after all.

 

[fromderinside]

survival rather than objectivity

Survival is an objective measure. Either the relationship between matter that creates the engine remains as a functional engine or it does not. It is either arranged as an object or it is not.

Survival is an objective goal, and goals are objects within "wills" which are objects whose particular properties will interact with other objects, behavioral engines and which will inevitably drive them towards output.

Both the engine and the script are objects. Both the proteins/enzymes (an engine) in your cells and the DNA (a script) that they read are objects.

Its more about which photons and what frequencies

Photons are objects. Frequencies of their motion are properties those objects have owing to their energy level, additional properties of objects.

But it is also about physics which is limited by what evolution can provide

Physics is not limited by evolution, Evolution is limited by physics...

and no your tongue and analytic substrates can't really verify their outputs with object structure

They create the outputs with their objective structure. Your attempt to inject verification as if double-checking and verification was necessary for collection...

...dance betweenwhat drives evolution and what is reality...

So what drives evolution is not reality?

Indirect detection can never be valid

All detection of everything is indirect. So you are really implying that no detection is valid of anything ever.

Yet again it's a No-True-Scotsman coming from FDI...

All I can say is I know Bayes. Bayes is a friend of mine

Sure he is. Point him my way and maybe we can have a chat. But making a name drop and a hand wave does not establish anything close to an "argument". While we as humans generally don't bother with quantifying error in our sensory input, it does not change the fact that the error in that input is still bounded in predictable ways and capable of being measured, and even validated against other indirect forms of measuring.

Amazing how you jump to false conclusions based on your logic, rather than realty based analysis. That one 'can' predict does not fall to one 'does' predict. Let me 'splain. Logic demands one does predict whilst reality determines the prediction of which one 'can' is relative to one, not universal.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

What happens in the restaurant also holds true in the pool room. Instead of reading a "menu", I will be "reading the table". I will hopefully see several shots that are (a) physically possible and (b) that I am able to make. The next step is choosing which shot to take, because I must state which shot I will attempt before actually taking it.

In the restaurant I must tell the waiter what I will have for dinner. In the pool room I must tell my opponent what shot I will take.

In the pool room, as in the restaurant, (a) there must be at least two things to choose from, and (b) it must be possible to choose either one. Both conditions must be met, before I can even begin weighing my options.

If the menu lists only one item, then choosing doesn't happen. But if we find ourselves considering two or more real possibilities, then choosing is happening.

Choosing happens by causal necessity. We find it happening all the time, and we've provided examples in the restaurant as we choose our dinner and in the pool room as we choose our shot. Apparently it is fixed by deterministic necessity that choosing will happen a lot.

Sure, the brain acquires information from its environment, processes it and generates a response. You learn to play pool and the brain sees the positions and relationships between balls and recognizes opportunities to score.

Brain function and information processing at work. A rational intelligent system (if healthy and functional).

Both in the restaurant and in the pool room, the controlling information process is called choosing, whether it is choosing what I will order for dinner or choosing which shot to take on the pool table.

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

I love that quote. It pithily explains why causal determinism is never experienced as a meaningful or relevant constraint. You are never being forced to do anything that you don't want to do. Thus, it is neither coercion nor an undue influence. It presents no challenge to free will. It is just you being you, doing what you wanted to do. It is basically "what you would have done anyway".

Or, as I like to say, determinism doesn't actually change anything.

It is the ultimate constraint for choice and free will.

Apparently not.

Choice is defined as the possibility of taking any one of a number of options, whereas determinism only permits one possible outcome.

Determinism only permits one actual outcome. When choosing, the number of possible outcomes is only limited by our imagination, which of course is a deterministic process, which obviously produces multiple possibilities from which WE will choose the actual outcome.

You see, determinism doesn't actually change anything. It simply points out the fact that everything that happens was always going to happen, exactly as it did happen. We would choose our dinner in the restaurant, and we would choose our shot on the pool table, from several real possibilities. It was always going to happen exactly like it did happen. Our having multiple options and choosing between them was inevitable. Determinism doesn't actually change anything.

Hence it is not possible that you could have wanted otherwise.

Figuratively true, but literally false due to the literal meaning of the words "possible" and "could". The literal truth is that "it was not actual that we would have wanted otherwise".

Your want is just as fixed as the inevitable action that follows. That is the point of Kane's remark.

Exactly. Thus determinism has not changed anything, because I am always choosing to do what I decide for myself that I want most to do. To view this condition as a meaningful or relevant "constraint" would be a delusion.

 

[Jarhyn]

That one 'can' predict does not fall to one 'does' predict

Predictions are not absolute declarations of the future. They are predictions not prophecies, after all.

Let me 'splain

Sure...

Logic demands one does predict whilst reality determines the prediction of which one 'can' is relative to one, not universal.

This is not an explanation though, it's a bare assertion.

Now about Bayes's email...

 

[fromderinside]

Reality and evolution are two different causes

I guess the one thing that I can accept is that the reality of your evolution, has caused you to lose touch with reality.

Maybe give Bayes my number and maybe he and I can have coffee some time.

Or my email? It's not hard to figure out. I'm on Gmail, after all.

Since I'm evolved rather than directly driven by physics I have to understand the relation between the two. One exists in reality. That's physics. What and how one operates is determined by what reality evolution left for us. A spiny lobster's brain permits reaction to inputs whereas humans have evolved brains which permit one to do otherwise.

 

[Jarhyn]

Since I'm evolved rather than directly driven by physics

Duality, at it's finest, folks.

No, to be evolved IS to be directly driven by physics.

That is what is meant by "deterministic".

I am driven by physics, the computer is driven by physics, every damn thing in the whole fucking universe is driven by physics.

That is what you say when you say "the universe is deterministic, or at least that's how literally everyone else defines the word "Deterministic".

You are so far into the ocean of not-even-wrong, you swim in the same depths as the leviathans in the bathtub*.

*This is a reference to the #1 fstdt quote, where a fundamentalist went on about a delusion about slaying leviathan in a hotel bathtub.

 

[fromderinside]

Evolution is reality relative to you in the world which is driven by where you are and what are your genetics. I'm pretty sure we're saying the same thing but you are hiding behind the guise of 'physics of realty' which requires translation from particular to some general notion of reality. Not playing.

 

[Jarhyn]

Evolution is reality relative to you in the world which is driven by where you are and what are your genetics. I'm pretty sure we're saying the same thing but you are hiding behind the guise of 'reality'.

No quiero ensalada. Quiero bistec.

Evolution is not even determined solely by genetics. There are multiple different models of evolution, there is nothing subjective about it.

Yet again you are trying to wave your hands and pretend that the processes by which the logical and mathematical principles of universal function are isolated.

The very existence of evolution is a revealer of the fact that the universe has laws of behavior, truth, which is consistent in it's own way, revealing general laws of function.

But moreover it is a red herring. Genetic evolution is not the only kind of knowledge seeking system.

 

[fromderinside]

RE: "not even" NS Red Rider. No one intimated it is.

The difference between the reality of an evolved being and simple physical reality is organization which you actually pointed to in your post. As for laws of function those would be similar to laws of logic which come from the mind of Meniscus, a presumptive fellow, who 'knows' things through reflex.

BTW is your knowledge seeking system anything like a 'self' organizing system. One that by structure replicates something embedded in it's structure? Yes something emerges. It's not seeking. It is designed to produce, replicate. Nothing new here. As for evolution it's 'creation' output is by random situational act - most call such happenstance - not seeking.

 

[DBT]

What happens in the restaurant also holds true in the pool room. Instead of reading a "menu", I will be "reading the table". I will hopefully see several shots that are (a) physically possible and (b) that I am able to make. The next step is choosing which shot to take, because I must state which shot I will attempt before actually taking it.

In the restaurant I must tell the waiter what I will have for dinner. In the pool room I must tell my opponent what shot I will take.

In the pool room, as in the restaurant, (a) there must be at least two things to choose from, and (b) it must be possible to choose either one. Both conditions must be met, before I can even begin weighing my options.

If the menu lists only one item, then choosing doesn't happen. But if we find ourselves considering two or more real possibilities, then choosing is happening.

Choosing happens by causal necessity. We find it happening all the time, and we've provided examples in the restaurant as we choose our dinner and in the pool room as we choose our shot. Apparently it is fixed by deterministic necessity that choosing will happen a lot.

Determinism is, by the terms of your own definition, a process of entailment and necessity, not choice. The actions that are performed must be performed as determined, no deviation, no alternatives, no selecting perhaps this, perhaps that....everything that happens are performed necessarily and without deviation.

Your use of 'choosing' is therefore false. Choosing does not exist in determinism. The decision making process is one of entailment, not choice.

The system unfolds, evolves or develops as it must, not according to how something is chosen.

Choice requires realizable alternatives.

Determinism has none.

Sure, the brain acquires information from its environment, processes it and generates a response. You learn to play pool and the brain sees the positions and relationships between balls and recognizes opportunities to score.

Brain function and information processing at work. A rational intelligent system (if healthy and functional).

Both in the restaurant and in the pool room, the controlling information process is called choosing, whether it is choosing what I will order for dinner or choosing which shot to take on the pool table.

Controlling? Choosing? There are deviations, no alternatives and picking or choosing what to do. Every action is entailed, not chosen. That includes each and every incremental step in brain activity as inputs interact with neural networks and memory function.

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

I love that quote. It pithily explains why causal determinism is never experienced as a meaningful or relevant constraint. You are never being forced to do anything that you don't want to do. Thus, it is neither coercion nor an undue influence. It presents no challenge to free will. It is just you being you, doing what you wanted to do. It is basically "what you would have done anyway".

Or, as I like to say, determinism doesn't actually change anything.

Nothing can deviate. There are no alternatives.

It is the ultimate constraint for choice and free will.

Apparently not.

Only in one's imagination, if the crucial terms and conditions are ignored. What is imagined doesn't necessarily relate to the physical world.

Choice is defined as the possibility of taking any one of a number of options, whereas determinism only permits one possible outcome.

Determinism only permits one actual outcome. When choosing, the number of possible outcomes is only limited by our imagination, which of course is a deterministic process, which obviously produces multiple possibilities from which WE will choose the actual outcome.

What you do was fixed long before you come to the point of performing the actions. What you do is entailed, not chosen.

''Determinism entails that, in a situation in which a person makes a certain decision or performs a certain action, it is impossible that he or she could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.''

You see, determinism doesn't actually change anything. It simply points out the fact that everything that happens was always going to happen, exactly as it did happen. We would choose our dinner in the restaurant, and we would choose our shot on the pool table, from several real possibilities. It was always going to happen exactly like it did happen. Our having multiple options and choosing between them was inevitable. Determinism doesn't actually change anything.

Nobody has said that determinism 'changes something' contrary to the how the system must necessarily progress.

That is the point, that determinism is a system where outcomes are entailed by antecedents, and entailment is not a matter of choice.

Hence it is not possible that you could have wanted otherwise.

Figuratively true, but literally false due to the literal meaning of the words "possible" and "could". The literal truth is that "it was not actual that we would have wanted otherwise".

Irrelevant. The system simply evolves as it must.

Your want is just as fixed as the inevitable action that follows. That is the point of Kane's remark.

Exactly. Thus determinism has not changed anything, because I am always choosing to do what I decide for myself that I want most to do. To view this condition as a meaningful or relevant "constraint" would be a delusion.

The point is not about determinism changing anything.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Determinism is, by the terms of your own definition, a process of entailment and necessity, not choice.

I've shown you choosing, in the restaurant and at the pool table. Determinism says that if it actually happens, then it necessarily must have happened, that it was entailed that it would happen, exactly as it did.

To claim that something, which we've both seen happening, never actually happened, is delusional.

The actions that are performed must be performed as determined, no deviation, no alternatives, no selecting perhaps this, perhaps that....everything that happens are performed necessarily and without deviation.

You're still drawing a false dichotomy between determined actions and the action of selecting. Determinism means that selecting must necessarily happen, and it must happen exactly as it does happen, without deviation.

Choosing does not exist in determinism.

Delusional.

 

[Jarhyn]

BTW is your knowledge seeking system anything like a 'self' organizing system

In your worldview is there no concept of a thing whose properties lead to the thing itself being changed?

But then again if you dispose of the idea of "self", you dispose of the idea of "thing" and even "quantity", and "location", because these are all different contextualization a of the same thing: addresses. I expect this is an unwanted side effect, but also unavoidable.

The very concepts of momentum, energy, and entropy were derived from these ideas of relative difference in positions of things.

If there are local phenomena limited by some speed of information, then the fundamental basis of "self" is satisfied in "here" and "there".

You are trying to pretend there are no trees in the forest.