Compatibilism: What's that About?

[The AntiChris]

Common usage does not account for the physics of determinism, only surface appearance.

You're confirming what I said. When you talk about 'choice', you're not talking about about the same thing as the rest of us.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Cause and effect (causal determinism) is the power.

Nope. Concepts do not possess any powers. You are once again suggesting that causal necessity as an agent exercising control over the actual objects and forces that make up the actual universe. The reason I keep pointing this out is that you and I happen to be actual objects within the actual universe.

If I toss a rock off a cliff, it will be the force of gravity that causally necessitates that the rock will fall downward. It will not be causal necessity that exerts power over the rock. It will be the power of gravity that is causing the falling.

In the same fashion, it will be my own power to lift the rock, and toss it over the cliff, that causally necessitates that the rock will have a long journey to the base of the cliff.

Cause is an effect and effect becomes cause.

Yes. Prior events caused me, and now I myself can cause new events.

Physics, the nature of matter/energy and progression of determined events is the power that shapes and forms our being, our thoughts and actions.

Physics describes what is happening in physical terms. But Physics is not a power that "shapes or forms" anything. Physics describes gravity and inertia, but physics is not gravity or inertia.

Physics can describe the power that I exercise when I pick up the rock. Physics can describe the power that I exercise when I toss the rock over the side of the cliff.

But physics cannot lift the rock or toss the rock. Only I can do that. Physics has no power to actually do anything.

And when it comes to describing why I happened to pick up and toss the rock, Physics is at a complete loss. It must hand off those questions to Biology and Psychology.

Evolution brought us into being, determined our genetic makeup, our capacities and weaknesses, our thoughts and our actions.

Yes. Prior events caused me, and now I myself can cause new events, according to my own goals, reasons, and interests. Evolution will not choose for me what I will have for breakfast. I will have to do that myself.

That is the nature and definition of a determined world. Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

Again, determinism is not an agent with its own agenda and the power to enforce it. Determinism is the belief that all events are the reliable result of prior events. For example, my choosing to toss the rock off the cliff was the prior event that causally necessitated the rock falling to the base of the cliff. And I was able to do that choosing and that tossing without breaking any of the laws of nature.

Compatibilism accepts that the world is determined, but defines free will as acting in accordance to one's will.

Yes.

A definition that is inadequate to prove the proposition because mind and will itself is determined and the actions that follow are inevitable actions, not freely willed actions

Our choices are always causally necessary/inevitable, and, when free of coercion and undue influence, our choices are always our own. But when not free of coercion and undue influence, our choices are not our own.

There is no "either inevitable or me". It is always "both inevitable and inevitably me" (or "both inevitable and the guy with the gun").

''Not freely willed'' in the real sense that what is being willed is a consequence of antecedents, the pesky actions of cause/effect, each cause an effect and each effect a cause as time and events roll on, unstoppable as a runaway freight train, no deviations, no alternate thoughts, decisions or actions, no maybe, no if only, no what if, only what is.

I don't find my prior causes to be pesky. After all, they made me the man that I am today. And I happen to be intelligent being with the ability to imagine alternative possibilities and choose for myself what I will do.

That is determinism.

Yes, and free will, too.

The visual information is interpreted by the various systems of the brain and translated into a signals to take action (visual,auditory,tactile reflexes) and on to the prefrontal cortex region which deal with complex responses, one's social values, cultural expectations, ethics, etc - the seat of one's personality and sense of self. Finally the brain forms conscious thoughts a deliberation and sends a commands to its motor neurons, muscle groups, glands... and the action is undertaken.''

Thanks. Please note the portion I've highlighted. The brain forming conscious thoughts of deliberation and sending commands to its motor neurons to carry out its deliberately chosen intention is called a "freely chosen will", or simply "free will".

Only by those who the desire to prove the idea of free will through the use of carefully crafted wording.

Hmm. And what about all those metaphors and figurative statements that hard determinists employ?

Conscious thoughts or deliberations are not the means of decision making, only the report, a part of the conscious 'mental map' of self and one's surroundings generated as a means of navigation within a complex environment: the world around us.

Every decision that is likely to require an explanation will involve conscious thought. None of the decisions in the Libet experiments required the subjects to explain their choices. However, someone might expect to be asked, "Why did you volunteer to be a subject in Libet's experiment?"

Basically:
''What did you have for breakfast this morning? Was it delicious? Was it one to forget? Whatever it was, you didn't choose to have it. You might think you did. But, in actuality, you didn't. And though you may have had the conscious awareness of choice — porridge or toast? coffee or tea? — and remember making an active decision, the fact is you could not have selected any other option. Any decision you think you may have made was simply an illusion.''

''And, unfortunately, it doesn't just stop at breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner. Or in fact any decision you ever remember making. Everything you've done couldn't possibly have happened any other way, and everything you will do will be decided for you — without any input from your conscious self.''

''Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.''

Hello, Sam Harris. Sam, be a dear, and explain to us who or what decided what I would have for breakfast this morning. If it was not me (with all my prior causes), then who was it?

 

[pood]

Perhaps DBT will address my earlier oft-repeated question of why evolution selected for complex, extremely energy intensive brains that can evaluate and choose when all of that is simply an illusion and we are no different from rocks rolling down hills.

 

[Jarhyn]

Perhaps DBT will address my earlier oft-repeated question of why evolution selected for complex, extremely energy intensive brains that can evaluate and choose when all of that is simply an illusion and we are no different from rocks rolling down hills.

Well, we are no different in many cases than rocks rolling down hills.

It just happens that the hills rocks such as us roll down are quite a lot more complicated.

The rock still makes choices that rocks are capable of making, merely by being what they are.

It's just that rocks don't make very exciting or interesting decisions, and the choices that lead to those decisions are also boring,.

 

[fromderinside]

How far are you willing to go with your mailman analogy. I contend it is in the system and the mailman has it. I've already specified the speed limit constraint.

Nobody is contending whether "the mailman has it". The mailBOX does not.

Until the mail is in my hot little hand, I have a choice set up, just waiting to see which way the pins go. Then when the mail comes, decision on the choice happens

The message being sent is the answer to the questions you have. Since you are not in possession of the information there is really no decision being primed, nothing upon which to base it. You might go into a wait-and-see or review options loop, but a decision loop I think not. The information carries the message and you execute it. What decision? What choice? Everything depends on there being information which you don't have until the message arrives.

 

[Copernicus]

...
The problem here is not that you made a distinction. It is that you never explained its relevance. There is no reason to believe that an artificial mechanical system cannot do what an evolved biological mechanical one can. You are making a gratuitous distinction without a difference here.

The relevance is that machine intelligence has neither consciousness or will, only function. Humans and other animals have functionality that acts through the medium of consciousness and will (the urge or prompt to act).

Some feel that because they are making conscious, willed, decisions that this is free will at work. Machined cannot think consciously nor do they have will. Which is relevant for that definition of free will, making conscious decisions.

I don't know where you are getting any of this. Nobody has said that robots have consciousness or free will here. Free will is a matter of interest, i.e. a research topic, in AI, because it is necessary for robots to operate autonomously under uncertain conditions--the same as humans. You appeared to be saying that we could not engineer mechanical systems with consciousness or free will, but now you seem confused about whether the issue was over mechanical systems having those functions today, which is utterly absurd. There is no reason to believe that artificial mechanical systems could not someday be engineered that would have consciousness and other mental functions, just like biologically evolved mechanical systems do now. I hope that this clears up the confusion for you.

Compatibilism of course defines free will as acting in accordance to ones will, which is in contrast to non biological mechanical intelligence which has neither consciousness or will, but is able to produce determinations and unimpeded actions based on its determinations.

The significance of all this has been explained numerous times, and I'm tired of repeating.

Perhaps you wouldn't be repeating yourself if you had given more thought to what I was actually saying about that subject.

It is a topic of interest in AI, however as far as I know, AI has yet to achieve consciousness or will.

I thought that that would be obvious to you. Did you think I was trying to claim that AI had achieved that level of development? Maybe you have been exposed to too many science fiction movies and stories.

Anyway, it does seem that we aren't really engaging in a discussion anymore, since you seem to be responding to positions that you think I take but that I have not taken. You can repeat that you think free will is an illusion, because you insist that the concept must ultimately mean freedom from causal necessity, and it doesn't matter if others try to disabuse you of that notion. My position is that "free will" means what speakers of English think it means, and causal necessity has nothing to do with what they think it is. In fact, people do seem to believe quite strongly that future outcome will be determined by factors that they may be unaware of, so they base their choices on their best calculation of how the future will unfold. That is really easy to understand, I think, but you can, and likely will, continue to cling to the idea that free will only makes sense if it is freedom from causal necessity. So I'll leave you to continue the discussion with others.

 

[DBT]

Common usage does not account for the physics of determinism, only surface appearance.

You're confirming what I said. When you talk about 'choice', you're not talking about about the same thing as the rest of us.

You must have missed the bit about necessitated choice, which is not free choice, which in turn is not free will.

 

[DBT]

Perhaps DBT will address my earlier oft-repeated question of why evolution selected for complex, extremely energy intensive brains that can evaluate and choose when all of that is simply an illusion and we are no different from rocks rolling down hills.

I have, it has been explained, studies, quotes and references provided in abundance....but it appears that rather than read and consider what has been provided and explained over and over, you just repeat the question.

Basically;


Principle 1. The brain is a physical system. It functions as a computer. Its circuits are designed to generate behavior that is appropriate to your environmental circumstances.

The brain is a physical system whose operation is governed solely by the laws of chemistry and physics. What does this mean? It means that all of your thoughts and hopes and dreams and feelings are produced by chemical reactions going on in your head (a sobering thought). The brain's function is to process information. In other words, it is a computer that is made of organic (carbon-based) compounds rather than silicon chips. The brain is comprised of cells: primarily neurons and their supporting structures. Neurons are cells that are specialized for the transmission of information. Electrochemical reactions cause neurons to fire.

Neurons are connected to one another in a highly organized way. One can think of these connections as circuits -- just like a computer has circuits. These circuits determine how the brain processes information, just as the circuits in your computer determine how it processes information. Neural circuits in your brain are connected to sets of neurons that run throughout your body. Some of these neurons are connected to sensory receptors, such as the retina of your eye. Others are connected to your muscles. Sensory receptors are cells that are specialized for gathering information from the outer world and from other parts of the body. (You can feel your stomach churn because there are sensory receptors on it, but you cannot feel your spleen, which lacks them.) Sensory receptors are connected to neurons that transmit this information to your brain. Other neurons send information from your brain to motor neurons. Motor neurons are connected to your muscles; they cause your muscles to move. This movement is what we call behavior.

 

[The AntiChris]

You must have missed the bit about necessitated choice, which is not free choice, which in turn is not free will.

No. I didn't miss anything.

I've been talking about your use of the word "choice". You've changed the subject.

 

[The AntiChris]

Perhaps DBT will address my earlier oft-repeated question of why evolution selected for complex, extremely energy intensive brains that can evaluate and choose when all of that is simply an illusion and we are no different from rocks rolling down hills.

I have, it has been explained, studies, quotes and references provided in abundance....but it appears that rather than read and consider what has been provided and explained over and over, you just repeat the question.

Basically;


Principle 1. The brain is a physical system. It functions as a computer. Its circuits are designed to generate behavior that is appropriate to your environmental circumstances.

The brain is a physical system whose operation is governed solely by the laws of chemistry and physics. What does this mean? It means that all of your thoughts and hopes and dreams and feelings are produced by chemical reactions going on in your head (a sobering thought). The brain's function is to process information. In other words, it is a computer that is made of organic (carbon-based) compounds rather than silicon chips. The brain is comprised of cells: primarily neurons and their supporting structures. Neurons are cells that are specialized for the transmission of information. Electrochemical reactions cause neurons to fire.

Neurons are connected to one another in a highly organized way. One can think of these connections as circuits -- just like a computer has circuits. These circuits determine how the brain processes information, just as the circuits in your computer determine how it processes information. Neural circuits in your brain are connected to sets of neurons that run throughout your body. Some of these neurons are connected to sensory receptors, such as the retina of your eye. Others are connected to your muscles. Sensory receptors are cells that are specialized for gathering information from the outer world and from other parts of the body. (You can feel your stomach churn because there are sensory receptors on it, but you cannot feel your spleen, which lacks them.) Sensory receptors are connected to neurons that transmit this information to your brain. Other neurons send information from your brain to motor neurons. Motor neurons are connected to your muscles; they cause your muscles to move. This movement is what we call behavior.

Your response doesn't seem to bear any relationship the the question asked.

 

[DBT]

Cause and effect (causal determinism) is the power.

Nope. Concepts do not possess any powers. You are once again suggesting that causal necessity as an agent exercising control over the actual objects and forces that make up the actual universe. The reason I keep pointing this out is that you and I happen to be actual objects within the actual universe.

No need to repeat what you say, you seem to be missngi the point. 'Power' in this instance is more a matter of information, energy and 'work' in the scientific sense.

You don't need to use the word 'power,' we are talking about the deterministic interaction of matter/energy objects, physics; how thing interact in a determined world.

Once again, events are not being forced by some external power, interactions are determined by the properties of the objects, animals. plants, rivers, oceans, atmosphere, solar energy and so on.

If I toss a rock off a cliff, it will be the force of gravity that causally necessitates that the rock will fall downward. It will not be causal necessity that exerts power over the rock. It will be the power of gravity that is causing the falling.

In the same fashion, it will be my own power to lift the rock, and toss it over the cliff, that causally necessitates that the rock will have a long journey to the base of the cliff.

It is the nature of Gravity that 'necessitates' the motion/acceleration of falling objects, the atmosphere creates drag. How long the object is in motion is determined by a number of factors, height, drag, terminal velocity, etc.....

Cause is an effect and effect becomes cause.

Yes. Prior events caused me, and now I myself can cause new events.

What you do is determined by prior events. You have no possible alternative. You do precisely what is determined. The nature of determinism is that you do not have the freedom to deviate or choose to do something else. Consequently, you have no free will. You do have will. You can act according to your will, but you do so necessarily.

Physics, the nature of matter/energy and progression of determined events is the power that shapes and forms our being, our thoughts and actions.

Physics describes what is happening in physical terms. But Physics is not a power that "shapes or forms" anything. Physics describes gravity and inertia, but physics is not gravity or inertia.

Physics can describe the power that I exercise when I pick up the rock. Physics can describe the power that I exercise when I toss the rock over the side of the cliff.

But physics cannot lift the rock or toss the rock. Only I can do that. Physics has no power to actually do anything.

And when it comes to describing why I happened to pick up and toss the rock, Physics is at a complete loss. It must hand off those questions to Biology and Psychology.

The physics of your brain determines what you see, feel, think and do. The physics of your body obeys the commands of the physics of your brain as you carry out your actions.


Principle 1. 'The brain is a naturally constructed computational system whose function is to solve adaptive information-processing problems (such as face recognition, threat interpretation, language acquisition, or navigation). Over evolutionary time, its circuits were cumulatively added because they "reasoned" or "processed information" in a way that enhanced the adaptive regulation of behavior and physiology.

Realizing that the function of the brain is information-processing has allowed cognitive scientists to resolve (at least one version of) the mind/body problem. For cognitive scientists, brain and mind are terms that refer to the same system, which can be described in two complementary ways -- either in terms of its physical properties (the brain), or in terms of its information-processing operation (the mind). The physical organization of the brain evolved because that physical organization brought about certain information-processing relationships -- ones that were adaptive.''

It is important to realize that our circuits weren't designed to solve just any old kind of problem. They were designed to solve adaptive problems.''

Again, determinism is not an agent with its own agenda and the power to enforce it.

Nobody said it was.

Hello, Sam Harris. Sam, be a dear, and explain to us who or what decided what I would have for breakfast this morning. If it was not me (with all my prior causes), then who was it?

Sure, it was all the prior causes that brought you to the breakfast table, causes that act upon your system, your brain, which processes its inputs and produces conscious experience, thoughts and deliberations as a means of interacting with your environment in order to meet your needs and wants....which is determined milliseconds before you are aware of the 'decision' you/the brain makes.

Which means that Sam Harris is essentially correct in what he says.

Moreover;
''If free will does not generate movement, what does? Movement generation seems to come largely from the primary motor cortex, and its input comes primarily from premotor cortices, parts of the frontal lobe just in front of the primary motor cortex.

The premotor cortices receive input from most of the brain, especially the sensory cortices (which process information from our senses), limbic cortices (the emotional part of the brain), and the prefrontal cortex (which handles many cognitive processes).

If the inputs from various neurons “compete,” eventually one input wins, leading to a final behavior. For example, take the case of saccadic eye movements, quick target-directed eye movements.

Adding even a small amount of electrical stimulation in different small brain areas can lead to a monkey's making eye movements in a different direction than might have been expected on the basis of simultaneous visual cues.4

In general, the more we know about the various influences on the motor cortex, the better we can predict what a person will do.

 

[DBT]

You must have missed the bit about necessitated choice, which is not free choice, which in turn is not free will.

No. I didn't miss anything.

I've been talking about your use of the word "choice". You've changed the subject.

Again. 'Choice' in relation to determinism is just a figure of speech/communication. Multiple options exist, but only one can be realized by someone in any given instance in time.

From our limited perspective we see range of options before us and describe this as our choice.

As determinism doesn't allow alternate actions, the options that appear available to us are an illusion formed by limited perspective because the action that is taken must necessarily be fixed.... ''time t, and the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.''

 

[pood]

Perhaps DBT will address my earlier oft-repeated question of why evolution selected for complex, extremely energy intensive brains that can evaluate and choose when all of that is simply an illusion and we are no different from rocks rolling down hills.

I have, it has been explained, studies, quotes and references provided in abundance....but it appears that rather than read and consider what has been provided and explained over and over, you just repeat the question.

Basically;

Principle 1. The brain is a physical system. It functions as a computer. Its circuits are designed to generate behavior that is appropriate to your environmental circumstances.

The brain is a physical system whose operation is governed solely by the laws of chemistry and physics. What does this mean? It means that all of your thoughts and hopes and dreams and feelings are produced by chemical reactions going on in your head (a sobering thought). The brain's function is to process information. In other words, it is a computer that is made of organic (carbon-based) compounds rather than silicon chips. The brain is comprised of cells: primarily neurons and their supporting structures. Neurons are cells that are specialized for the transmission of information. Electrochemical reactions cause neurons to fire.

Neurons are connected to one another in a highly organized way. One can think of these connections as circuits -- just like a computer has circuits. These circuits determine how the brain processes information, just as the circuits in your computer determine how it processes information. Neural circuits in your brain are connected to sets of neurons that run throughout your body. Some of these neurons are connected to sensory receptors, such as the retina of your eye. Others are connected to your muscles. Sensory receptors are cells that are specialized for gathering information from the outer world and from other parts of the body. (You can feel your stomach churn because there are sensory receptors on it, but you cannot feel your spleen, which lacks them.) Sensory receptors are connected to neurons that transmit this information to your brain. Other neurons send information from your brain to motor neurons. Motor neurons are connected to your muscles; they cause your muscles to move. This movement is what we call behavior.

But you have not addressed what I said at all. I am not asking you to describe how you think the brain works.The question I am asking, which thus far you have glossed over at best, is why you think evolution gave us brains that seem to evaluate among multiple options and then choose the one that seems best, if all this is an illusion. There must have been a rather vast number of selective pressures over many generations to produce a brain that doesn’t actually do what it seems to do! Also, you keep repeating the claim that the brain is a computer. So far as I know — perhaps I missed it — you did not address the rather detailed article I posted arguing that the brain is NOT a computer, and that it takes active steps in constructing reality and choosing among options.

 

[Jarhyn]

How far are you willing to go with your mailman analogy. I contend it is in the system and the mailman has it. I've already specified the speed limit constraint.

Nobody is contending whether "the mailman has it". The mailBOX does not.

Until the mail is in my hot little hand, I have a choice set up, just waiting to see which way the pins go. Then when the mail comes, decision on the choice happens

The message being sent is the answer to the questions you have. Since you are not in possession of the information there is really no decision being primed, nothing upon which to base it. You might go into a wait-and-see or review options loop, but a decision loop I think not. The information carries the message and you execute it. What decision? What choice? Everything depends on there being information which you don't have until the message arrives.

No, you do not merely "execute the information". Most of the execution is information already present, and even if it were not, WHAT is it pray tell that is doing the execution?

It is certainly not the whole universe. It is certainly not all of prior causality. It is the locality doing the execution.

The locality doing an execution on incoming information here is DECISION!

And further, you have classified through hand-waving definition this "wait and see" as 'not choice'.

I reject this definitional rejection. This rejection of your decision to just attempt to stop using the word "choice" and "decision" makes them no more or less real as phenomena.

The compatibilist says "I have choices".

I sit at a screen viewing an entire universe on pause. A question is posed to me, as a result of prior cause: what do you wish to attack this goblin with?

I can choose many things. But moreover... Let's just imagine for a moment that I stop right there and save my game and quit, and make a copy of the file, and send it to you.

Now, we are both sitting in the same seat in the same (for now) universe looking at the same text.

You can choose to attack the goblin in the head with our spear.

I can choose to attack the goblin in the feet with our battle axe.

The same question, posed in different contexts, yields different answers. There are now two universes where there was previously only the identity of one.

We're we to make the same decisions the same things would happen. Yet we are not bound to.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

... You don't need to use the word 'power,'

You introduced the word "power" in the material you quoted. Remember this nugget?

1. If causal determinism is true, all events are necessitated
2. If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers
3. Free will consists in the exercise of an agent’s powers

It had never come up in our discussion until you brought it to the table.

... we are talking about the deterministic interaction of matter/energy objects, physics; how thing interact in a determined world.

Right. This is more commonly known as simple "cause and effect". Evolution over time caused humans like you and me to eventually appear on the Earth. So, there are prior causes of you and me. I pick up a rock and toss it off the cliff, causing the rock to fall to the bottom of the cliff. So, now that I'm here, I get to be the cause new events.

Once again, events are not being forced by some external power, interactions are determined by the properties of the objects, animals. plants, rivers, oceans, atmosphere, solar energy and so on.

And one of my properties is the ability to choose whether to toss the rock off the cliff, or just drop it back on the ground, without throwing it anywhere.

It is the nature of Gravity that 'necessitates' the motion/acceleration of falling objects, the atmosphere creates drag. How long the object is in motion is determined by a number of factors, height, drag, terminal velocity, etc.....

Yes. I caused the rock to be in a position where nothing would stop it from falling to the bottom of the cliff.
But gravity actually caused the falling, after I tossed the rock off the cliff by my own choice.
That's how things work. Simple cause and effect.

What you do is determined by prior events.

Which prior events did you have in mind? Did the Big Bang cause me to toss the rock off the cliff? How about the War of 1812?

There are an infinite number of prior causes to choose from. But which prior causes were the most meaningful and relevant prior causes?

Suppose, that rock, that I tossed off the cliff, killed someone on the beach below? What can be done to prevent this from happening again? Can we alter the Big Bang? Can we change who won the War of 1812?

Do you see the problem, yet?

You have no possible alternative. You do precisely what is determined.

Okay, so people who drop rocks off a bridge onto cars below, resulting in the driver's death, are irrelevant. After all, the Big Bang caused that death, and there's nothing that can be done about the Big Bang. So, we should just accept this as something that inevitably will happen. Is that your position?

The nature of determinism is that you do not have the freedom to deviate or choose to do something else.

That is not the nature of determinism. The nature of determinism is that we will necessarily encounter events in which we must make a choice. Our choice will determine our action. Our action will determine what happens next. If what happens next causes harm to someone, then we will be held responsible for our actions, and will be subject to correction, because it was our own deliberation that caused the choice that set our intent upon doing that action. Our deliberation was the meaningful and relevant cause of the event. That is how determinism works.

Consequently, you have no free will.

Nope. You still have the ability to choose for yourself what you will do. That ability was causally necessitated by a long history of our evolution, a prior cause of us.

You do have will. You can act according to your will, but you do so necessarily.

When we are uncertain as to what is the best thing to do, we consider different things we can do, and then choose from them what we will do.

Physics, the nature of matter/energy and progression of determined events is the power that shapes and forms our being, our thoughts and actions.

Physics describes what is happening in physical terms. But Physics is not a power that "shapes or forms" anything. Physics describes gravity and inertia, but physics is not gravity or inertia.

Physics can describe the power that I exercise when I pick up the rock. Physics can describe the power that I exercise when I toss the rock over the side of the cliff.

But physics cannot lift the rock or toss the rock. Only I can do that. Physics has no power to actually do anything.

And when it comes to describing why I happened to pick up and toss the rock, Physics is at a complete loss. It must hand off those questions to Biology and Psychology.

Principle 1.

WTF?! I went to the trouble of finding the valid link to the article for you and now you post the same outdated link that takes us to a 404 error again?

Be a little more careful when you cut-n-paste, please.

Hello, Sam Harris. Sam, be a dear, and explain to us who or what decided what I would have for breakfast this morning. If it was not me (with all my prior causes), then who was it?

Sure, it was all the prior causes that brought you to the breakfast table, causes that act upon your system,

Well, I'm standing in the kitchen, alone, so where should I look to find those prior causes? There is only one place, they are now a part of who and what I am. Therefore, it is actually I, myself, that is doing the choosing. It is precisely what it looks like.

your brain, which processes its inputs and produces conscious experience, thoughts and deliberations as a means of interacting with your environment in order to meet your needs and wants....which is determined milliseconds before you are aware of the 'decision' you/the brain makes.

Yeah, we've been over the brain now quite a bit. We agree that for simple decisions, especially habitual decisions, there is very little thought that goes into it. But you seem to ignore the fact that our significant decisions, especially those that we may need to explain later, will involve conscious deliberation up front.

Which means that Sam Harris is essentially correct in what he says.

Moreover;

Another bum 404 link. I think many organizations modify their web pages over time. It might be helpful if you would test your URLs and update them before posting if needed.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

'Choice' in relation to determinism is just a figure of speech/communication.

Choice in relation to determinism is exactly what it always has been. Choosing is an operation that inputs two or more options, applies some criteria of comparative evaluation, and outputs a single choice. Choosing is an empirical event. The word "choosing" refers to the event. The word "choice" refers to the output of this event, but is also used to refer to the options, because they are our possible choices.

A figure of speech of would be saying something like, "Because the choice is inevitable, it is AS IF choosing never happened". That is a figurative statement. And, like all figurative statements, it is literally (actually, objectively, empirically) false. Choosing does happen and we do it.

Multiple options exist, but only one can be realized by someone in any given instance in time.

Nope. Only one will be realized. You are conflating what "will" happen with what "can" happen. Every option that can be realized if we choose to realize it, is something that can happen. But only the option that we choose will happen.

Every time a choosing event appears in the causal chain, there will be at least two real possibilities, two things that we can choose, two things that can be realized.

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 and our ability to carry out the option if we choose it.

From our limited perspective we see range of options before us and describe this as our choice.

You mean from a perspective limited to all of the meaningful and relevant facts. And, that's a pretty good perspective to have.

As determinism doesn't allow alternate actions,

False! Determinism necessitates every alternate possibility! All of the alternate options will necessarily occur to us, as soon as we open the restaurant menu. All of the events are always causally necessary, all of the time.

the options that appear available to us are an illusion

Look at the menu! Are you experiencing an illusion? Yes or no?

formed by limited perspective because the action that is taken must necessarily be fixed.... ''time t, and the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.''

And, sure enough, the menu is right there in front of you, fixed as a matter of natural law.

 

[Copernicus]

A hard determinist takes the position that the future is fixed and determined by past events. So there will only ever be one choice that can happen, and it is the one that will happen. That is why I have insisted that one needs to distinguish between choices actually made in reality and those that will be made in the agent's imagination. When the choice is being made, alternative possibilities only exist in the mind of the agent, not reality. At some point, the "choice" stops being an imagined one and actually becomes a real one.

Reality is something entirely different, because future outcomes can never be certain. The only thing an agent can know is what possible future outcomes could happen. So free will only exists in the mind. It is a subjective experience, i.e. something that only has existence as a mental construct. And this is where the debate becomes tricky, because eliminative materialists take the position that mental constructs are illusions and therefore dismissible.

It is almost impossible to shake them from that position, even though they themselves actually treat these "illusions" seriously. They can deny that pain is ultimately real, but that doesn't mean that they will ignore pain. So about the only thing that one can do in the face of such self-delusion is let them go on their merry way. They aren't really hurting anyone, not even themselves. Sometimes people just get caught up in that kind of sophistry.

 

[Jarhyn]

'Choice' in relation to determinism is just a figure of speech/communication.

Choice in relation to determinism is exactly what it always has been. Choosing is an operation that inputs two or more options, applies some criteria of comparative evaluation, and outputs a single choice. Choosing is an empirical event. The word "choosing" refers to the event. The word "choice" refers to the output of this event, but is also used to refer to the options, because they are our possible choices.

A figure of speech of would be saying something like, "Because the choice is inevitable, it is AS IF choosing never happened". That is a figurative statement. And, like all figurative statements, it is literally (actually, objectively, empirically) false. Choosing does happen and we do it.

Multiple options exist, but only one can be realized by someone in any given instance in time.

Nope. Only one will be realized. You are conflating what "will" happen with what "can" happen. Every option that can be realized if we choose to realize it, is something that can happen. But only the option that we choose will happen.

Every time a choosing event appears in the causal chain, there will be at least two real possibilities, two things that we can choose, two things that can be realized.

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 and our ability to carry out the option if we choose it.

From our limited perspective we see range of options before us and describe this as our choice.

You mean from a perspective limited to all of the meaningful and relevant facts. And, that's a pretty good perspective to have.

As determinism doesn't allow alternate actions,

False! Determinism necessitates every alternate possibility! All of the alternate options will necessarily occur to us, as soon as we open the restaurant menu. All of the events are always causally necessary, all of the time.

the options that appear available to us are an illusion

Look at the menu! Are you experiencing an illusion? Yes or no?

formed by limited perspective because the action that is taken must necessarily be fixed.... ''time t, and the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.''

And, sure enough, the menu is right there in front of you, fixed as a matter of natural law.

I don't think it's even necessary that only one choice will be realized.

Let's say I save my game. Whatever context I'm trying to make it through...

Last time I chose to go left.

This time, same problem, same decision, this time I go right.

In some it is the same choice chosen differently because the criterion of selection changed because... Another system is also making decisions and choices, one of which changes the context of the criterion process. It's choices all the way down, excepting that there is in all of this the actual decision being examined, whatever that may be, and this decision is the exercise of it's local state against the incoming message.

If I stab the goblin in the chest, rather than the knee, it will bite my face rather than grappling my toe. It is still exercising it's free will to react.

I would be robbing it of free will to bite me, though, to remove it's ability to bite by knocking out all it's teeth with the butt of my spear. At that point it has fewer choices to make at all.

If I chop off it's hands it has fewer still choices. It can no longer grapple me at all.

If I chop it's head clear off and send the severed part flying in an arc, it's agency ceases to function. It will no longer be probed to functionally process a series of choices.

In some ways It was for the best. It was in an army headed for a nearby town. And there was an army with it.

Key word: was.

It was inevitable.

It doesn't mean I didn't choose for it to happen.

 

[fromderinside]

How far are you willing to go with your mailman analogy. I contend it is in the system and the mailman has it. I've already specified the speed limit constraint.

Nobody is contending whether "the mailman has it". The mailBOX does not.

Until the mail is in my hot little hand, I have a choice set up, just waiting to see which way the pins go. Then when the mail comes, decision on the choice happens

The message being sent is the answer to the questions you have. Since you are not in possession of the information there is really no decision being primed, nothing upon which to base it. You might go into a wait-and-see or review options loop, but a decision loop I think not. The information carries the message and you execute it. What decision? What choice? Everything depends on there being information which you don't have until the message arrives.

No, you do not merely "execute the information". Most of the execution is information already present, and even if it were not, WHAT is it pray tell that is doing the execution?

It is certainly not the whole universe. It is certainly not all of prior causality. It is the locality doing the execution.

The locality doing an execution on incoming information here is DECISION!

And further, you have classified through hand-waving definition this "wait and see" as 'not choice'.

I reject this definitional rejection. This rejection of your decision to just attempt to stop using the word "choice" and "decision" makes them no more or less real as phenomena.

The compatibilist says "I have choices".

I sit at a screen viewing an entire universe on pause. A question is posed to me, as a result of prior cause: what do you wish to attack this goblin with?

I can choose many things. But moreover... Let's just imagine for a moment that I stop right there and save my game and quit, and make a copy of the file, and send it to you.

Now, we are both sitting in the same seat in the same (for now) universe looking at the same text.

You can choose to attack the goblin in the head with our spear.

I can choose to attack the goblin in the feet with our battle axe.

The same question, posed in different contexts, yields different answers. There are now two universes where there was previously only the identity of one.

We're we to make the same decisions the same things would happen. Yet we are not bound to.

I'll stick to realms where material examples can be examined and supported or falsified. In that world, the 'real' world is quite limited. What was being processed comes from within the observer who is subject to executing behavior. What is in the nearby systems is very nearly what is in the analysis systems since the information arriving and being transmitted by both near and far are the same systems with only the execution element to be determined. That determination is the information for which the local system is waiting.

The elements deciding are actually false since they are only echoes of what has been processed (sub-vocalizations, circulating saved and correlated images, smells, balance and effector systems and, the like. But for some genetic reason, they persist as being 'required' for action to continue or change. That seems to come from a previous means by which information was processed that depended on station to station.

If one looks at the underlying neural activity in ascending and descending pathways one will find intermediate stages of processing interacting with modifications sent back to those areas. Since information is negotiated throughout the NC, the station to station approach has become moot even though parts of it have been integrated into the more advanced way we treat change.

I waited to bring up this last point because the only place I know where such data exists is in unanalyzed data from experiments back in the seventies and eighties going forward to now. What I mean is that intermediate states of knowledge about what one 'knows' about the world are running around in feedback systems in the ascending and descending sensory systems.

It isn't fair for me to bring this up since you are working from a model where distance does impact 'knowledge'. But the activity runs concurrently with the incoming and projecting information. That information is activity ongoing and interacting with past and future options.

What I'm suggesting is that the human and several species have, by more or less competing upward and downward information integrations, versions of near now which are all continuously being updated by new and acted upon information.

It acts a lot like a hologram which has several time gradients shouldering probabilities determined by nuclei between sense and cortex. As such though it is like what  Ivan Edward Sutherland speculated back in the late fifties it actually has several thresholds of determination built into our fuzzy information suite.

We're never consciously in charge since that would be as impossible as integrating what we know and don't know within our majestic brains.

If you doubt what I'm saying just take a look at the neural integration up and down the brain from the receptor to the cortex to the receptor.

 

[The AntiChris]

It was inevitable.

It doesn't mean I didn't choose for it to happen.

Exactly.