Compatibilism: What's that About?

[fromderinside]

oy vey

Hadn't found insert feature so I posts stuff to which I contributed nothing.

The indeterminist cite is https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/

4. The Evidence

Our discussion of incompatibilist theories of free will has focused so far on whether they provide an adequate account of what free will would be if it exists. However, even if one or another of these views is theoretically satisfactory in this regard, the question remains whether there is any evidence that what the theory says is required for free will actually exists.

Incompatibilist accounts require, first, that determinism be false. But more than this, they require that there be indeterminism of a certain sort (e.g., with some events entirely uncaused, or nondeterministically caused, or caused by agents and not deterministically caused by events) and that this indeterminism be located in specific places (generally, at the time of the occurrence of decisions and other basic actions). What is our evidence that these requirements are satisfied?

The scientific evidence for quantum mechanics is sometimes said to show that determinism is false. Quantum theory is indeed very well confirmed. However, there is nothing approaching a consensus on how to interpret it. Indeterministic as well as deterministic interpretations have been developed, but it is far from clear whether any of the existing interpretations is correct. (For a more in depth discussion of rival interpretations of quantum mechanics see section 4.4 of the Determinism entry.) Perhaps the best that can be said here is that there is currently no good evidence that determinism is true.

The scientific evidence is even less decisive with respect to whether there is the kind of indeterminism located in exactly the places required by typical incompatibilists. Unless there is a complete independence of mental events from physical events, then even for free decisions there has to be indeterminism of a specific sort at specific junctures in certain brain processes. There are some interesting speculations in the works of some incompatibilists about how this might be so (see, e.g., Kane 1996b: 128–30, 137–42, and the sources cited there), but our current understanding of the brain gives us little evidence one way or the other about whether it is in fact so.

Some noncausal theories of free will maintain that for us to act freely our actions must be uncaused. However, we seem to have little evidence that this (alleged) requirement is ever met. We do, however, have evidence that it often isn’t met, as a compelling case can be made that many of our everyday actions have causes (Capes 2017). Consider an ordinary, everyday action: Tony goes to the store to buy some chocolate cake. Why did he do so? In part because his wife asked him to, and the ‘because’ here is arguably causal. That the request is a cause of Tony’s action is suggested by the presence of several causal markers, things that indicate a causal connection between two states or events. For instance, effects often (though not always) counterfactually depend on their causes, and Tony’s action counterfactually depends on his wife’s request; had she not asked him to go to the store and get cake, he wouldn’t have done so. Tony’s action also counterfactually varies with the content of his wife’s request; had she asked for carrot cake instead of chocolate, he would have gotten carrot cake instead. His wife’s request raised the probability (even if it didn’t ensure) that he would go to the store and buy some cake, it helps explain why he went to the store and got what he got, and it was a means to the end of getting Tony to go to the store. The joint presence of these causal markers strongly suggests that Tony’s wife’s request that he go to the store and get some cake is a cause of his doing so. Note, moreover, that Tony’s action isn’t special in this regard. Similar claims can be made about many of our everday behaviors. If so, and if an action must be uncaused in order to be free, then we have reason to suppose that we rarely, if ever, act freely.

What about agent causation? It is sometimes argued that agent causation must be anomic, not subject to any laws of nature, and that on our best evidence this requirement is not met (Pereboom 2001: ch. 3 and 2014: 65–69). However, the claim that free will requires such lawlessness is contested (Clarke 2010).

Some incompatibilists (e.g., Campbell 1957: 168–70 and O’Connor 1995: 196–97) claim that our experience when we make decisions and act constitutes evidence that there is indeterminism of the required sort in the required place. There are various ways to develop this claim. A strong version has it that our experience of our own agency represents our actions as being produced in just the way that one or another incompatibilist account says they must be if we are to have free will. (For an objection to this claim, see Mele 1995: 135–37). A weaker version of the claim is that we experience some of our actions as free (even if that experience doesn’t represent our actions as being uncaused or non-deterministically caused or agent caused) and then infer from this experience, together with the assumption that free will requires indeterminism of the relevant sort, that the right sort of indeterminism obtains. However, both versions of the claim are open to the following objection. If things are to be the way they are said to be by some incompatibilist account, then the laws of nature—laws of physics, chemistry, and biology—must be a certain way. (This is so for overt, bodily actions regardless of the relation between mind and body, and it is so for decisions and other mental actions barring a complete independence of mental events from physical, chemical, and biological events.) And many find it incredible that how things seem to us when we act gives us insight into the laws of nature.

Whether they should, though, is a matter of controversy. Suppose one experiences oneself falling. Surely this imposes some limits on how the laws of nature could be. Perhaps there must be something like a law of gravity in order for this experience to be veridical. Or, more minimally, one can at least infer from the experience of falling that the laws of nature don’t preclude falling. So, there is no general problem with inferring facts about the laws of nature from one’s own experiences. The question, then, is whether there is some special problem with inferring from our experience of our own agency that the incompatibilist requirements are met.

Some incompatibilists (e.g., van Inwagen 1983: 204–13) hold that, although we lack good empirical or experiential evidence that we have free will, we nevertheless have good moral reason to believe that we have it. The claim is that we have good reason to believe that we are sometimes morally responsible for our behavior and that moral responsibility requires free will. Together, these claims give us good reason to suppose that we sometimes have free will. However, absent solid evidence for the indeterminism that incompatibilists say is required for free will, if we justifiably believe that responsibility requires free will and that free will requires indeterminism, it seems to some that, rather than concluding that we have free will, we should instead withhold judgment on whether we are ever morally responsible for anything.

If an incompatibilist theory of free will is correct, it thus appears to be an open question whether the requirements for free will specified by the theory are ever satisfied, and thus an open question as well whether anyone ever has free will.

You need to overcome the established objections to Incompatibalism (Non Determinist) theories presented above before you go dancing on your merry way.

 

[Bomb#20]

Everett's MWI has become popular precisely because it restores determinism to the quantum world, but at the expense of positing an infinite (or near infinite) number of alternative realities. People find that idea extremely troubling. Sean M Carroll's book explores that discomfort, explains why he thinks MWI is the most plausible of all interpretations of QM, and explores a number of different alternatives to it. So I would recommend looking at his book, if you are interested. It was written for folks who don't care for the notion of "many worlds". ...
The wave collapse into a reality only occurs during observation with a recording device of some kind. As Carroll puts it, the recording device becomes entangled with the phenomenon it is interacting with. Future wave collapses are only probabilistically determined.

Quantum Mechanics in a nutshell consists of two laws: the Schroedinger Equation which says how a system changes when it isn't being measured, and the Born Rule which says how it changes when it is being measured. The Copenhagen Interpretation is an exercise in not taking the Schroedinger Equation seriously. The CI says it's an equation describing our knowledge of a system, or an equation describing our ability to predict consequences of interactions with a system, and is stubbornly agnostic about the system itself. (That's why Bohm spent so much of his career trying to get rid of the CI -- the grand champion of quantum determinism philosophically didn't actually give a hoot about randomness.)

Everett's MWI appears to be the Copenhagen Interpretation's evil twin: on its face it looks like an exercise in not taking the Born Rule seriously. Does Carroll's book explain how MWI would result in a typical observer measuring 96 transmitted photons for every 4 reflected by a glass surface? The vast majority of explanations of MWI simply skip over that question as though it had never occurred to their authors to wonder.

 

[pood]

In addition to the MWI there is also the thoroughly deterministic interpretation of QM called Superdeterminism, though the physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, who champions this, maintains that superdeterminism is not an interpretation of QM, but a deeper theory.

 

[pood]

An attempt to derive the Born Rule from MWI

 

[pood]

Sean Carroll has also addressed this.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Physicists engage in philosophical metaphors all the time. For example, the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM) is a philosophical stance, not a scientific one. It is about how to interpret a quantum event (interaction between quantum particles/strings/fields/etc.). QM is sometimes held out as relevant to the causal necessity interpretation of "free will" (as opposed to Marvin's humanist interpretation of the term). A different interpretation--Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI)--restores the concept of deterministic interactions. That is, every QM event spawns multiple instances of realities, but we only get to experience the reality that our conscious mind observes. So our experienced reality is only ever going to experience a probabilistic "indeterminate" universe when we try to measure quantum interactions. None of this has anything to do with Marvin's point about the natural human interpretation of "free will", because we are creatures that only interact with the environment where causal probabilities collapse into observable entangled states. That is, they are no longer merely probabilistic once we have experienced them. They are a done deal. Different copies of ourselves in alternate realities experience different entangled realities.

Reference: Sean M Carroll  Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

I don't care for the notion of "many worlds" because it suggests science fiction, traveling between dimensions, and such.

I think it is more accurate to simply distinguish the difference between a possibility and an actuality. A possibility exist solely within the imagination. We cannot drive a car across the possibility of a bridge. We can only drive across an actual bridge. However, we cannot build an actual bridge without first imagining one or more possible bridges. And, as soon as we build the actual bridge, it ceases to be called a "possibility" and is now referred to as an "actuality".

A possibility is something that "can" happen if we have the resources and skills required to make it happen. The fact that the possibility is never actualized does make it an "impossibility", it simply remains something that we "could have" done, but "did not" do. The only way that an option becomes an impossibility is by realizing that we lack the resources or the skills needed to make it happen. Only that makes the option impossible. It is only impossible if it cannot be done. The fact that it will not be done does not make it an impossibility. It remains something that could have been done, but something we simply did not do.

What "can" happen constrains what "will" happen. If it cannot happen, then it will not happen.
But what "will" happen never constrains what "can" happen. What "can" happen is only constrained by our imagination.

To keep our language straight, there are many "possible" futures, as many as we can imagine because it is within the imagination that all possibilities exist. But there will be only one "actual" future. The fact that only one of our possible futures is ever actualized, does not make the other possible futures that we imagined "impossible", it only makes them futures that could have happened, but didn't.

Within the domain of human influence (things we can make happen if we choose to), the single, inevitable, actual future will be chosen, by us, from among the many possible futures that we can imagine.

A simple example would be breakfast. I have eggs in the refrigerator, so I can fix eggs for breakfast. So, one possible future is me sitting at the table eating eggs. But I also have pancake mix in the cupboard, so, if I want, I can fix pancakes instead. So, the other possible future is me sitting at the table eating pancakes. Upon consideration of my options, I remember that I've had eggs for breakfast all week. So, I decide that I "will" have pancakes this morning. I "could have" had eggs, but I didn't.

From multiple possible futures, the single actual future is chosen. From multiple "I can's" the single "I will" is chosen. One option becomes what I will do. All the other options become things I could have done, but didn't.

Motto of Postmodern Scientists, Who Find Rationality So Boring: "If It's Weird, It's Wise"

Having been temporarily infected with the Quantum Quacks' irrationality, I was going to object that your What's for Breakfast example is irrelevant, because you choose the possibility that becomes a reality. But so do inanimate objects, not in the sense of intention but because they are being driven by an outside cause, also inanimate, that irrationalists refuse to recognize. All Indeterminacy proves is that there absolutely must be a force we don't know about, a outside dimension in an outside world that affects our world but is not inside it. With humans, the outside force is will. But intention is not needed to change possibilities into realities. Scientists stuck in exciting escapism, childishly yelping "Cool!" and "Wow!" refuse to even look for the outside reality that must be there.

 

[bilby]

Physicists engage in philosophical metaphors all the time. For example, the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM) is a philosophical stance, not a scientific one. It is about how to interpret a quantum event (interaction between quantum particles/strings/fields/etc.). QM is sometimes held out as relevant to the causal necessity interpretation of "free will" (as opposed to Marvin's humanist interpretation of the term). A different interpretation--Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI)--restores the concept of deterministic interactions. That is, every QM event spawns multiple instances of realities, but we only get to experience the reality that our conscious mind observes. So our experienced reality is only ever going to experience a probabilistic "indeterminate" universe when we try to measure quantum interactions. None of this has anything to do with Marvin's point about the natural human interpretation of "free will", because we are creatures that only interact with the environment where causal probabilities collapse into observable entangled states. That is, they are no longer merely probabilistic once we have experienced them. They are a done deal. Different copies of ourselves in alternate realities experience different entangled realities.

Reference: Sean M Carroll  Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

I don't care for the notion of "many worlds" because it suggests science fiction, traveling between dimensions, and such.

I think it is more accurate to simply distinguish the difference between a possibility and an actuality. A possibility exist solely within the imagination. We cannot drive a car across the possibility of a bridge. We can only drive across an actual bridge. However, we cannot build an actual bridge without first imagining one or more possible bridges. And, as soon as we build the actual bridge, it ceases to be called a "possibility" and is now referred to as an "actuality".

A possibility is something that "can" happen if we have the resources and skills required to make it happen. The fact that the possibility is never actualized does make it an "impossibility", it simply remains something that we "could have" done, but "did not" do. The only way that an option becomes an impossibility is by realizing that we lack the resources or the skills needed to make it happen. Only that makes the option impossible. It is only impossible if it cannot be done. The fact that it will not be done does not make it an impossibility. It remains something that could have been done, but something we simply did not do.

What "can" happen constrains what "will" happen. If it cannot happen, then it will not happen.
But what "will" happen never constrains what "can" happen. What "can" happen is only constrained by our imagination.

To keep our language straight, there are many "possible" futures, as many as we can imagine because it is within the imagination that all possibilities exist. But there will be only one "actual" future. The fact that only one of our possible futures is ever actualized, does not make the other possible futures that we imagined "impossible", it only makes them futures that could have happened, but didn't.

Within the domain of human influence (things we can make happen if we choose to), the single, inevitable, actual future will be chosen, by us, from among the many possible futures that we can imagine.

A simple example would be breakfast. I have eggs in the refrigerator, so I can fix eggs for breakfast. So, one possible future is me sitting at the table eating eggs. But I also have pancake mix in the cupboard, so, if I want, I can fix pancakes instead. So, the other possible future is me sitting at the table eating pancakes. Upon consideration of my options, I remember that I've had eggs for breakfast all week. So, I decide that I "will" have pancakes this morning. I "could have" had eggs, but I didn't.

From multiple possible futures, the single actual future is chosen. From multiple "I can's" the single "I will" is chosen. One option becomes what I will do. All the other options become things I could have done, but didn't.

Motto of Postmodern Scientists, Who Find Rationality So Boring: "If It's Weird, It's Wise"

Having been temporarily infected with the Quantum Quacks' irrationality, I was going to object that your What's for Breakfast example is irrelevant, because you choose the possibility that becomes a reality. But so do inanimate objects, not in the sense of intention but because they are being driven by an outside cause, also inanimate, that irrationalists refuse to recognize. All Indeterminacy proves is that there absolutely must be a force we don't know about, a outside dimension in an outside world that affects our world but is not inside it. With humans, the outside force is will. But intention is not needed to change possibilities into realities. Scientists stuck in exciting escapism, childishly yelping "Cool!" and "Wow!" refuse to even look for the outside reality that must be there.

"outside reality" is an incoherent concept. Anything that impinges on reality is part of reality. The only things not part of reality are, by definition, not real, and therefore do not exist.

 

[pood]

I have to assume “sage” is talking about “god.” “Quantum quacks” is nicely alliterative, though. I don‘t guess Sage knows that QM explains how his computer works, the device he uses to post on the internet “quantum quacks.”

 

[steve_bank]

Internet Indeterminacy

Apparent random uncorrelated posts with unknown causalities. Do posts s come from nothing? Are posts real?

 

[steve_bank]

Can you predict exactly when I will post?

Or could you analyze all the post times of my posts and develop a statistical model of whenIi am likely to post? In principle no different than quantum uncertainty. A statistical model of observations.

 

[DBT]

You say that as if we bend the laws of physics on the basis of will.

No no. The last thing in the world we would ever want is for the laws of physics to be bendable. We need the laws of physics to be 100% reliable so that we can predict where the Moon will be, to assure that our rocket lands on the Moon rather than missing it entirely.

In which case we have the Origination argument;


Origination Argument

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.


1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.


Every time we make a choice between any two options, like A and B, we have the ability to choose A and we also have the ability to choose B. That is "the ability to do otherwise". And it shows up whenever a choosing operation appears in the causal chain.

''Determinism does not eliminate the ability to do otherwise. It guarantees that the choosing operation will appear in the causal chain. And with the choosing operation comes the ability to do otherwise, free of charge.''

Determinism is defined by events, including brain activity, being fixed as a matter of natural law. There is no ability to have done otherwise in any given circumstance. If you are able to do what you could not do a moment ago, it's because conditions have changed to enable the action. Not merely enable, but necessitate.

 

[Copernicus]

...
Quantum Mechanics in a nutshell consists of two laws: the Schroedinger Equation which says how a system changes when it isn't being measured, and the Born Rule which says how it changes when it is being measured. The Copenhagen Interpretation is an exercise in not taking the Schroedinger Equation seriously. The CI says it's an equation describing our knowledge of a system, or an equation describing our ability to predict consequences of interactions with a system, and is stubbornly agnostic about the system itself. (That's why Bohm spent so much of his career trying to get rid of the CI -- the grand champion of quantum determinism philosophically didn't actually give a hoot about randomness.)

Everett's MWI appears to be the Copenhagen Interpretation's evil twin: on its face it looks like an exercise in not taking the Born Rule seriously. Does Carroll's book explain how MWI would result in a typical observer measuring 96 transmitted photons for every 4 reflected by a glass surface? The vast majority of explanations of MWI simply skip over that question as though it had never occurred to their authors to wonder.

I would urge you not to arrive at a conclusion about Sean Carroll's approach to QM from my description of it, since I am not a physicist. Rather, I would direct you to his own publications on the subject and let you draw your conclusions from the source. The book has received both praises and criticisms from people who know far more than I do on the subject. I found the book a fascinating defense of WMI, and I contained some very helpful simple explanations of competing points of view in the field of physics up to 2019. I brought it up here because of what he had to say about determinism. In any case, it is somewhat beside the point that Marvin has been continually making in his several threads. The concept of free will isn't very useful from the perspective of a closed deterministic universe. Nevertheless, entities that operate within that universe do not have the knowledge of an external omniscient observer, and the lack of that knowledge causes them to operate as if the future were not fully determined. And that is where the "freedom" in "free will" resides. It doesn't matter if a godlike being could only see their choices as fully determined, since they aren't godlike beings.

 

[DBT]

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?
2- If freedom does not require the possibility of realizable options, that the world proceeds along a determined, singular, course of events, why call it freedom?
3- If 'freedom' does not require a means for the selection an option from set of realizable alternatives, what is freedom?

 

[DBT]

Our limited perspective is determined by a number of elements. One, the wiring of our brains. We have no means with which to access the means of production of our experience of the world and self. There are no means for us, as conscious entities, to access the underlying activity that brings us into being. What we see, hear, feel, think, decide or do is being produced by neural networks that are beyond our perception or control.

Correct. The model, that our brain gives us of ourselves, does not include any perception of what the individual neurons are doing. For example, we do not know when Neuron number 173452 fires and which combination of neurons firing will finally trigger Neuron number 9327488 to unload its charge upon Neuron number 3581334.

Why do you suppose this information is not included in the model? Because to have information about a single neuron would require a thousand additional neurons. And we could not fit our heads through any doorway.

So, the model is a symbolic representation of reality. Rather than seeing the individual atoms in the ball and the bat, we see just two objects, the "ball", and, the "bat". And we learn to "swing" the "bat" to "hit" the "ball" and then to "run" the "bases". And, rather than tracking the individual neurons in our brains, we experience "our" "selves" "performing" "certain" "activities", such as "walking" and "thinking".

Oh, and of course, "freely" "choosing" for "our" "selves" "what" "we" "will" "do" "next". And this activity is called "free will", which is short for a freely chosen will.

We are whatever the brain is currently doing.

Exactly. "We" are whatever the brain is currently doing, including when the brain is freely choosing what it will do next.

Calling this 'free will' is a misnomer.

Calling it "free will" is a short summation of "choosing for ourselves what we will do while free of coercion and undue influence". It is a summary of an empirical event that we perceive through the model. A "coerced will" is a short summary of an empirical event where our choice is imposed upon us against our will by the threat of harm. An "unduly influenced will" is a short summary for any event in which our choice is controlled by someone or something other than our own rational selves.

Except we are not actually choosing for ourselves. Decision making is a process that's being shaped by multiple elements, neural architecture, environment, inputs, etc, etc......which result in a necessitated, inevitable course of action. An action not brought about through will or conscious choice, but the world unfolding deterministically. What we do is shaped and constrained by elements beyond our control;

Pereboom's argument against compatibilism:

• (1) If one agent's decision is manipulated by another agent, then that first agent's action is not freely willed.​
• (2) There is no difference between a manipulation by another agent and causation by a causal factor external to the agent.
• (3) On determinism, all of an agent's actions are determined (causally influenced) by at least some factors beyond that agent's control.
• (4) Therefore, on determinism, no agent can be said to freely will their actions (or be morally responsible for them). (from 1, 2 and 3)
  
  
  
  
  ​

 

[DBT]

More on the problems with compatibilism and the free will illusion; Quote;


PHILOSOPHICAL COMPATIBILISM IN A NUTSHELL


''As I said, philosophical compatibilists agree that someone could not have, of their own accord, done otherwise, but they don’t define free will in this way. Compatibilist can define free will in a number of different ways, but they all have one thing in common – they are defined in a way that is compatible with the natural universe.


For example, a compatibilist definition might be as simple as defining free will as the “ability to make decisions or choices” or “the ability to deliberate”.


Daniel Dennett calls free will “the power to be active agents, biological devices that respond to our environment with rational, desirable courses of action”. Roy Baumeister similarly calls “the ability to be aware of alternates and make the choice that is best for you evolutionarily” as free will. Most compatibilists have similar semantics or impressions about the term “free will”, basically concluding that certain “decision-making” abilities should be labeled “free will”


They might even suggest that we should move away from those incoherent definitions of free will and into those more coherent ones. Definitions that Dennett calls a “free will worth wanting“.

 

[The AntiChris]

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

I don't understand your response (it doesn't appear to address my criticism).

Marvin has not suggested (or implied) that "determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent".

 

[steve_bank]

When you make a measurement of any kind you are always measuring the system comprised of the measurement apparatus and what is being measured. Measure a battery voltage with a digital meter and the measured voltage is not exactly the same as the actual open circuit voltage across the battery.

Put a thermometer in a cup of water and you measure water, cup, and thermometer. Put a glass thermometer in a small cup of water and the water temperature changes. The water tends to bring the thermometer and water into thermal equilibrium. With a cup the error can be high.

Put a glass thermometer in the ocean where the mass of the thermometer is much less than the ocean the local temperature of the water does not change significantly.

The problem with quantum scale measurements is the relative energy and mass of measurement and measured. Using a particle to measure a particle

Any measurement involves a transfer of energy. When measuring a battery voltage some of the energy however small from the battery is lost in the meter. The minimum energy is the quanta.

An old question, does an electron really exist or is it a manifestation of the system, measurement plus what is measured?

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Our limited perspective is determined by a number of elements. One, the wiring of our brains. We have no means with which to access the means of production of our experience of the world and self. There are no means for us, as conscious entities, to access the underlying activity that brings us into being. What we see, hear, feel, think, decide or do is being produced by neural networks that are beyond our perception or control.

Correct. The model, that our brain gives us of ourselves, does not include any perception of what the individual neurons are doing. For example, we do not know when Neuron number 173452 fires and which combination of neurons firing will finally trigger Neuron number 9327488 to unload its charge upon Neuron number 3581334.

Why do you suppose this information is not included in the model? Because to have information about a single neuron would require a thousand additional neurons. And we could not fit our heads through any doorway.

So, the model is a symbolic representation of reality. Rather than seeing the individual atoms in the ball and the bat, we see just two objects, the "ball", and, the "bat". And we learn to "swing" the "bat" to "hit" the "ball" and then to "run" the "bases". And, rather than tracking the individual neurons in our brains, we experience "our" "selves" "performing" "certain" "activities", such as "walking" and "thinking".

Oh, and of course, "freely" "choosing" for "our" "selves" "what" "we" "will" "do" "next". And this activity is called "free will", which is short for a freely chosen will.

We are whatever the brain is currently doing.

Exactly. "We" are whatever the brain is currently doing, including when the brain is freely choosing what it will do next.

Calling this 'free will' is a misnomer.

Calling it "free will" is a short summation of "choosing for ourselves what we will do while free of coercion and undue influence". It is a summary of an empirical event that we perceive through the model. A "coerced will" is a short summary of an empirical event where our choice is imposed upon us against our will by the threat of harm. An "unduly influenced will" is a short summary for any event in which our choice is controlled by someone or something other than our own rational selves.

Except we are not actually choosing for ourselves. Decision making is a process that's being shaped by multiple elements, neural architecture, environment, inputs, etc, etc......which result in a necessitated, inevitable course of action. An action not brought about through will or conscious choice, but the world unfolding deterministically. What we do is shaped and constrained by elements beyond our control;

Pereboom's argument against compatibilism:

• (1) If one agent's decision is manipulated by another agent, then that first agent's action is not freely willed.​
• (2) There is no difference between a manipulation by another agent and causation by a causal factor external to the agent.
• (3) On determinism, all of an agent's actions are determined (causally influenced) by at least some factors beyond that agent's control.
• (4) Therefore, on determinism, no agent can be said to freely will their actions (or be morally responsible for them). (from 1, 2 and 3)
  
  
  ​

We are actually doing the choosing for ourselves. We walk into a restaurant, sit at the table, browses the menu, and places our order. The waiter brings us our meal, and later brings us the bill. Did the restaurant choose the meal? Did the waiter choose the meal? Did the menu choose the meal? Did the table choose the meal? No. We are actually doing the choosing for ourselves.

Only the specific "neural architecture" that is us, our own brain, decided which option on the menu we would choose. The biological drive to satisfy our hunger is also part of who and what we are. So, "who and what we are" also decided to walk into that restaurant at that time of day. Whenever "who and what we are" makes a choice, "we, ourselves" made that choice, because "who and what we are" is identical to "we, ourselves".

Determinism makes no choices. Determinism is not an entity with a brain. Determinism has no skin in the game. Determinism doesn't care what we order. Determinism is simply the belief that what we order will be reliably caused by "who and what we are", and that "who and what we are at any moment" will be reliably caused by "who and what we were" and our experiences with our external physical and social environments, going back in time to when we were born, and then back through the evolution of our species, and then back to the appearance of life, and then back to the formation of the stars and planets, and then back to the Big Bang, and then back to whatever preceded the Big Bang, and so on, ad infinitum.

But we mustn't forget that we have been active participants in determining who and what we will be from the time we were born.

Okay, so let's deal with Pereboom:

Pereboom's argument against compatibilism:

• (1) If one agent's decision is manipulated by another agent, then that first agent's action is not freely willed.​
• (2) There is no difference between a manipulation by another agent and causation by a causal factor external to the agent.
• (3) On determinism, all of an agent's actions are determined (causally influenced) by at least some factors beyond that agent's control.
• (4) Therefore, on determinism, no agent can be said to freely will their actions (or be morally responsible for them). (from 1, 2 and 3)

Free will is a choice that is free from coercion and undue influence. Reliable causation in itself is neither coercive nor undue. Only specific causes, such as a guy holding a gun to our head, qualify as "coercive". Only specific causes, such as a mental illness that causes us to behave insanely, qualify as extraordinary (undue) influences.

But Pereboom says, "there is no difference between a manipulation by another agent and causation by a causal factor external to the agent." Pereboom falsely suggests that all causes are coercive and that all influences are unduly manipulative. To Pereboom, the restaurant is the same as a guy holding a gun to our head. To Pereboom the menu is a manipulation we cannot resist. To Pereboom, our own thoughts and feelings about which meal might be most satisfying, to us personally, carries no weight. We are victims of the restaurant and the menu.

Pereboom says, "on determinism, all of an agent's actions are determined (causally influenced) by at least some factors beyond that agent's control". Well, our choices in the restaurant are indeed limited to the meals listed on the menu. But the restaurant, in order to attract many customers with different tastes, has purposefully provided us with multiple options to choose from. So, our choices are many, and the reasons for choosing one meal rather than another will be found within us. Do we have dietary goals? That's us. Do we have curiosity about an option we've never tried? That's us. Do we have foods we want to avoid? That's us.

Determinism asserts that our choice will be reliably caused. Free will asserts that it will be reliably caused by us. Both facts are clearly true. So, there in the restaurant, the compatibility of the two concepts, is demonstrably true (and Pereboom is demonstrably mistaken).

 

[Marvin Edwards]

More on the problems with compatibilism and the free will illusion; Quote;


PHILOSOPHICAL COMPATIBILISM IN A NUTSHELL


''As I said, philosophical compatibilists agree that someone could not have, of their own accord, done otherwise, but they don’t define free will in this way. Compatibilist can define free will in a number of different ways, but they all have one thing in common – they are defined in a way that is compatible with the natural universe.


For example, a compatibilist definition might be as simple as defining free will as the “ability to make decisions or choices” or “the ability to deliberate”.


Daniel Dennett calls free will “the power to be active agents, biological devices that respond to our environment with rational, desirable courses of action”. Roy Baumeister similarly calls “the ability to be aware of alternates and make the choice that is best for you evolutionarily” as free will. Most compatibilists have similar semantics or impressions about the term “free will”, basically concluding that certain “decision-making” abilities should be labeled “free will”


They might even suggest that we should move away from those incoherent definitions of free will and into those more coherent ones. Definitions that Dennett calls a “free will worth wanting“.

Free will is simply a person choosing for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.
Determinism is the belief (-ism) that every event is reliably caused by prior events.
Compatibilism is the belief that there is nothing incompatible between the notion that a choice is reliably caused (determinism) and the notion that it is reliably caused by us (free will).
Case closed.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

...
Origination Argument

Seems to me I've heard this song before. But let's take it apart to see what works and what doesn't.

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.

It's lunch time, and she feels hungry. She walks into the restaurant, sits down, browses the menu, chooses what she will have for lunch, and places her order: "I will have the chef salad please".

The hunger is her own. The decision to eat at the restaurant was made by her. So, she is the ultimate source of her action of going into the restaurant. Now, she is not the origin of her hunger, that was a product of evolution. Nevertheless, this hunger is an integral part of who and what she is now. Evolution did not decide that she would eat now rather than later. She did that herself. Evolution did not choose the restaurant and evolution did not choose the chef salad. That was all her.

2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.

No. If determinism is true, then the agent will be the ultimate cause of what the agent does, in response to circumstances inside (her hunger) and circumstances outside (the restaurant and the menu). There is nothing about determinism that excludes her and her choices from being an essential part of the overall scheme of causation.

3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.

As has been pointed out repeatedly, everything the agent does is NOT "ultimately cause by events and circumstance beyond her control". Her own choices ARE her exercising control. We cannot pretend that she is not choosing what she will do. We saw her sit at the table, browse the menu, and place the order. The only things external to her were the restaurant, the menu, and the table. None of these external items chose what she would eat. She did.

4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.

A false conclusion derived from false premises. She is the originator of her decision to enter the restaurant. She is the originator of her choice to have the chef salad. Neither of these events could happen without her.

To be true, determinism cannot selectively pick and choose which causes to include and which causes to hide from. It must include all causes: physical, biological, and rational. It must include the choices of rational agents as one of the significant causes of real world events.

5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Nope. That's been repeatedly disproved throughout these discussions. Determinism and free will are not opposites. The opposite of determinism is indeterminism. The opposite of free will is a choice imposed upon someone through coercion or other forms of undue influence.

1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.

It is not necessary to have power over the facts of the past or the laws of nature. We ourselves are one of those facts of the past. We ourselves are a walking, talking package of those laws of nature.

2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).

Right. But we are part of those facts and an embodiment of those laws.

3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.

Actually, everyone is a part of those facts, and everyone makes choices that affect their own future, as well as the future of others. Take global warming for example.

In fact, within the domain of human influence, the single inevitable future will be chosen by us from the many possible futures that we imagine. I can have eggs for breakfast or I can have pancakes. Whether my future will be sitting at the table eating eggs, or sitting at the table eating pancakes, is up to me to decide. I have two possible futures, but I will have only one actual future. And that single inevitable future will be chosen by me.

Determinism is defined by events...

Well no. Determinism is defined as "the belief that all events are reliably caused by prior events".

...including brain activity, being fixed as a matter of natural law.

Natural law is not an entity that goes around nailing things down. We do that. The "laws" of nature describe our reliable patterns of behavior as we go about nailing things down. These would mostly be the "principles" of psychology and sociology.

There is no ability to have done otherwise in any given circumstance. If you are able to do what you could not do a moment ago, it's because conditions have changed to enable the action. Not merely enable, but necessitate.

All events are necessitated by prior events. The prior event that necessitates a deliberate act is the act of deliberation, the event of choosing what we will do.

Choosing begins with a state of uncertainty. Will I choose A, or will I choose B? I don't know. That's the uncertainty. To deal with uncertainty about what "will" happen, we imagine what "can" happen, to prepare for what "does" happen. "I can choose A" is a true statement. "I can choose B" is also a true statement. This is the "ability to do otherwise".

After considering my two options, one of them is chosen and the other is not. The one that is chosen becomes the thing that I "will" do. The one that is not chosen becomes the thing that I "could have" done, but did not do.

Therefore, we must conclude that, whenever a choosing operation shows up as an event in the causal chain, "I could have done otherwise" will always be true, and it is only "I would have done otherwise" that will always be false.

Therefore, the claim that "there is no ability to have done otherwise in any given circumstance" is clearly false. And it remains false despite the fact that many "authorities" have mistakenly asserted it to be true.