Demystifying Determinism

[fromderinside]

You can not show that soft determinism exists.

Well, soft determinism is not an object that exists or doesn't exist. It is a description of how the world works. The question is whether or not the description it presents is accurate or not. Oh, and I prefer to use the term "determinism" without qualifiers when speaking of the correct version of determinism.

If we must qualify it, then it should be called "perfect determinism", because it presumes that all events are reliably caused by prior events, such that every event is causally necessary from any prior point in time, and inevitably must happen. There are no uncaused uncaused events.

I hope that definition satisfies you. If not, then by all means offer your own.

You are also failing to show that our actions are both determined and free. That shows that there is a inherent self contradition in the concept of soft determinism. It is defined into place, but the contradiction has not been resolved, merely ignored

If you start with a false premise, then you will end with a false conclusion. There is no such thing as freedom from causal necessity! Nor is there such a thing as freedom from oneself, nor freedom from reality. These are impossible freedoms. So, any use of the term "free" or "freedom" must be taken to mean something other than an impossible freedom.

The notion of freedom only becomes meaningful when it refers, explicitly or implicitly, to some meaningful and relevant constraint, that is, something that we might want to be free of and something that we actually can be free of.

For example:

1. We set the bird free (from its cage).
2. The woman at the grocery store was handing out free samples (free of charge).
3. In this country we enjoy freedom of speech (free from censorship).
4. I participated in Libet's experiment of my own free will (free of coercion and undue influence).

So, in each example we have the meaningful and relevant constraints that one might want to be free from. And, in each example we have actions that are both determined and free, in a meaningful and relevant way.

1. In a world of perfect determinism, the bird cannot be free from causation, but it can be free from its cage.
2. And the samples in the grocery store cannot be free from causation, but they can be free of charge.
3. And the words we speak cannot be free from causation, but they can be free of censorship.
4. And our choices cannot be free from causation, but they can be free from coercion or undue influence.

So, despite causal necessity, the bird, the samples, our speech, and our choices can all be free from specific meaningful and relevant constraints, while never being free from causal necessity.

There is no contradiction between our choice being both determined and free from coercion and undue influence.

Your contradiction has just been resolved.

Now, all you have to do is show that you didn't start with a false premise.

You make claims, but,do your claims match reality? Conceptually, the concept of soft determinism is flawed. It can not explain how you can things can be deterministic, but you have choice at the same time. Your syllogism can not be shown to be either valid or sound.

The best way to check our claims against reality is to use a common example that we're all familiar with: people actually making choices in a restaurant. In the restaurant, we do not have to deal with subjective feelings. We can objectively observe people walking in, sitting at a table, picking up the menu, browsing through the possibilities, and then telling the waiter what they will have for dinner. Whether they are having any illusions of choosing for themselves we do not know. But we know that we are not having any illusions as we watch them actually doing it.

If we want to know the reasons why they chose one thing rather than another, we can simply ask them: "Excuse us, but we're scientists doing a survey. Would you mind if we asked you a question?" "Sure, why not". "Why did you choose the Chef Salad for dinner tonight?". "I saw the steak first, but when I thought of the bacon and eggs I had for breakfast and the double cheeseburger I had for lunch, I decided I had better have some vegetables for dinner, so I chose the salad instead." "So, those reasons caused you to choose the salad instead of the steak?" "Yes, they did." "Thank you for participating in our survey."

The first thing we notice from this is that they believe that their choice was reliably caused. They do not view it as an "uncaused" event. They have their own goals and their own reasons, and these goals and reasons are deterministically causing their choice.

The second thing we notice that there is no one holding a gun to their head. And their choice appears reasonable, and not the product of some mental illness, or hypnosis, or any other undue influence. So we conclude that this was a choice they made for themselves, "of their own free will".

Our conclusion then is that the choice was reliably caused (deterministic) and also reliably caused by the customer (free will). Thus, we conclude that determinism and free will are compatible notions.

So, the ball is in your court to prove otherwise.

Otherwise is different from what you wrote. QED

 

[ramoss]

1. The premise of soft determination, that you can have choice even if everything is predetermined.

It's simple, really. It was predetermined that you would have to make a choice.

1. It was predetermined that you would encounter a problem or issue that required you to make a choice before you could continue (for example, you are in the restaurant, facing a literal menu of different things you can order, and you must tell the waiter what you will have for dinner, or go hungry tonight).
2. It was predetermined that you would evaluate your options in terms of your own dietary or other goals.
3. It was predetermined that one of these options would satisfy your goals and reasons better than the other options.
4. It was predetermined that you would set your intention (your will) upon having that option for dinner.
5. It was predetermined that you would tell the waiter, "I will have the (your choice), please."
6. It was predetermined that the waiter would bring you your choice, and the bill for your dinner.
7. It was predetermined that, after you ate your dinner, you would takes responsibility for the bill, and pay the cashier on your way out.

The fact that events were predetermined did not alter the fact that you would be making a choice!

Do you see it yet?

I see what you say. However, because it was predetermined, although a choice was presented , you had no choice but to choose that choice.
That makes the line of reasoning you are presenting null and void.

Repeating bad reasoning doesn't make that reasoning suddenly true

 

[Marvin Edwards]

I see what you say. However, because it was predetermined, although a choice was presented , you had no choice but to choose that choice.

Yes. Determinism suggests that I had no choice but to choose what I myself decided that I would choose.

That makes the line of reasoning you are presenting null and void. Repeating bad reasoning doesn't make that reasoning suddenly true.

Just because you don't like where the reasoning leads us does not make the reasoning bad or "null and void".

The bad reasoning is the argument from figurative speech. Because my choice will be inevitable from any prior point in time, it is AS IF choosing never happened, and AS IF my choice was made before I was born, and AS IF something other than me made that choice instead of me. We humans often use figurative speech in our communication. But figurative speaking has one serious drawback: Every figurative statement is literally false. So, if we're really interested in Truth, we need to avoid misleading figurative statements.

To identify a figurative statement, all we need do is compare it to empirical reality. Is it true that choosing never happened? Of course not. We observed everyone in the restaurant actually making a choice. Was their choice made before they were born? Nope. It was made exactly when they made it, right there in the restaurant. Was their choice made by something other than themselves? Clearly not. Not only did we witness them doing the choosing, but we also saw the waiter bring the correct dinner order to the person who chose it.

So, all three of those claims, that choosing never happened, that the choice was made in advance, that something other than the person made the choice, are false. They are based upon bad reasoning.

Determinism does not actually change anything. All events are reliably caused by prior events. And the final, responsible prior cause of a deliberate act is usually the act of deliberation that precedes it.

 

[ramoss]

Now, all you have to do is show that you didn't start with a false premise.

What premise are you referring to?

It can not explain how you can things can be deterministic, but you have choice at the same time.

I think you may have an unrealistic concept of 'choice'. Can you explain how we choose in the absence of reliable causation?

No one can show that there is an absense of reliable causation.

I see what you say. However, because it was predetermined, although a choice was presented , you had no choice but to choose that choice.

Yes. Determinism suggests that I had no choice but to choose what I myself decided that I would choose.

That makes the line of reasoning you are presenting null and void. Repeating bad reasoning doesn't make that reasoning suddenly true.

Just because you don't like where the reasoning leads us does not make the reasoning bad or "null and void".

The bad reasoning is the argument from figurative speech. Because my choice will be inevitable from any prior point in time, it is AS IF choosing never happened, and AS IF my choice was made before I was born, and AS IF something other than me made that choice instead of me. We humans often use figurative speech in our communication. But figurative speaking has one serious drawback: Every figurative statement is literally false. So, if we're really interested in Truth, we need to avoid misleading figurative statements.

To identify a figurative statement, all we need do is compare it to empirical reality. Is it true that choosing never happened? Of course not. We observed everyone in the restaurant actually making a choice. Was their choice made before they were born? Nope. It was made exactly when they made it, right there in the restaurant. Was their choice made by something other than themselves? Clearly not. Not only did we witness them doing the choosing, but we also saw the waiter bring the correct dinner order to the person who chose it.

So, all three of those claims, that choosing never happened, that the choice was made in advance, that something other than the person made the choice, are false. They are based upon bad reasoning.

Determinism does not actually change anything. All events are reliably caused by prior events. And the final, responsible prior cause of a deliberate act is usually the act of deliberation that precedes it.

That is right. Nor, does the fact that you are using strained logic and leaps of logic mean the reasoning is correct.

Your conclusions is based on your premise that there is a choice, even if there is deterministtion, and all the reasoning that follows it trying to reach a foregone conclusion. You can not show your reasoning isn't bad. You can not show a reason for your jumps of logic.

 

[Jarhyn]

Now, all you have to do is show that you didn't start with a false premise.

What premise are you referring to?

It can not explain how you can things can be deterministic, but you have choice at the same time.

I think you may have an unrealistic concept of 'choice'. Can you explain how we choose in the absence of reliable causation?

No one can show that there is an absense of reliable causation.

I see what you say. However, because it was predetermined, although a choice was presented , you had no choice but to choose that choice.

Yes. Determinism suggests that I had no choice but to choose what I myself decided that I would choose.

That makes the line of reasoning you are presenting null and void. Repeating bad reasoning doesn't make that reasoning suddenly true.

Just because you don't like where the reasoning leads us does not make the reasoning bad or "null and void".

The bad reasoning is the argument from figurative speech. Because my choice will be inevitable from any prior point in time, it is AS IF choosing never happened, and AS IF my choice was made before I was born, and AS IF something other than me made that choice instead of me. We humans often use figurative speech in our communication. But figurative speaking has one serious drawback: Every figurative statement is literally false. So, if we're really interested in Truth, we need to avoid misleading figurative statements.

To identify a figurative statement, all we need do is compare it to empirical reality. Is it true that choosing never happened? Of course not. We observed everyone in the restaurant actually making a choice. Was their choice made before they were born? Nope. It was made exactly when they made it, right there in the restaurant. Was their choice made by something other than themselves? Clearly not. Not only did we witness them doing the choosing, but we also saw the waiter bring the correct dinner order to the person who chose it.

So, all three of those claims, that choosing never happened, that the choice was made in advance, that something other than the person made the choice, are false. They are based upon bad reasoning.

Determinism does not actually change anything. All events are reliably caused by prior events. And the final, responsible prior cause of a deliberate act is usually the act of deliberation that precedes it.

That is right. Nor, does the fact that you are using strained logic and leaps of logic mean the reasoning is correct.

Your conclusions is based on your premise that there is a choice, even if there is deterministtion, and all the reasoning that follows it trying to reach a foregone conclusion. You can not show your reasoning isn't bad. You can not show a reason for your jumps of logic.

Straining logic in a way that does not break it is not really much of a strain. Just because it takes... Many pages... and a discussion on counting in utterly insane ways... It does not change the fact that Andrew Wiles did indeed prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

There are no leaps there in the compatibilist position, though. That's your problem.

It took a LOT of work to get there, believe me. And thankfully, I didn't have to do most of the work. Most of the work in proving free will was done by Tarn Adams. I don't know if he was intending to prove out free will in deterministic systems, but he did! I'm not even sure if he knows what he did...

But he did and that's what's important here: the fact that I can observe, in a perfectly deterministic system, a little thing that has thoughts, and wills to do things, and which  chooses from between those things in a way that if it was implemented in a neural structure actually could choose just as richly as I can when I pilot around an avatar in that simulation.

Of course, choice is not even important for free will to exist. It's just a red herring.

Choice, as regards free will, is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Urist, in the scenario in the temple, has zero choices, and needs zero choices for to hold a "will", and for that will to be "free". Or, conversely, for his will to be "constrained"

Like things such as "humans" and "neurons" are to choice, seemingly always there in our reconning of it, but neither necessary nor sufficient, so too is choice neither necessary nor sufficient to a definition of "free", "will", nor to the arrangement of a "will to originate one's own wills", which is "free will".

What is identifiable clearly as a will is any thing that is "a series of instructions unto a requirement".

The dwarf has as much: it has a series of steps it plans to take. One of those steps requires the opening of a door. Pay attention to that word "requires".

It does not choose this series of steps. It is fed this series of steps by some other thing that chooses the series of steps, namely a modified A* pathing Algorighm through mapped space.

The dwarf does not choose these steps.

Occasionally, the dwarf does choose steps, when there is a conflicting priority to the space in the time they are stepping through. When this happens, he will step around other dwarves and the like, and must make a choice of how. But today the dwarf is not going to have such a conflict.

None of Urist's steps today are chosen.

Urist also does not choose that the door is locked.

Urist had a will to fight. Arguably they chose this, but he chose it long before the scenario started.

What can be said is that the set of universes that spring forth from Urist walking through that door (really, it's a set containing a single imaginary universe) do not include the universe Urist is in.

He has a will. That will shall not meet a particular requirement, in that the door will not open. It is locked and Urist lacks any power to unlock it.

The compatibilist calls this state of his will "unfreeness" or "constraint".

If the door had been unlocked, his will would be "free" at least through the part with the door. Just out of sick curiousity, I even corrupt the universe. I unlock the door and make his will "free" and there he goes, to the dining hall, to fight... Oh, and there it is, in the fight logs, there goes Rovod's leg... Oh, now Rovod's bleeding out. Oh, he's praying now. Well, that might be literally the ONLY Dwarven prayer I've ever read and it's not even... I mean I guess I'm going to answer it though... Turns out that if his will had been free he  could have slaughtered 12 dwarves.

But he didn't.

But in the fact that "if the door was unlocked..." is a mathematically proven scenario, we have in fact validated could, choice on possibilities, and the like, this way, as well.

Not bad for playing a stupid little game.

 

[ramoss]

Now, all you have to do is show that you didn't start with a false premise.

What premise are you referring to?

It can not explain how you can things can be deterministic, but you have choice at the same time.

I think you may have an unrealistic concept of 'choice'. Can you explain how we choose in the absence of reliable causation?

No one can show that there is an absense of reliable causation.

I see what you say. However, because it was predetermined, although a choice was presented , you had no choice but to choose that choice.

Yes. Determinism suggests that I had no choice but to choose what I myself decided that I would choose.

That makes the line of reasoning you are presenting null and void. Repeating bad reasoning doesn't make that reasoning suddenly true.

Just because you don't like where the reasoning leads us does not make the reasoning bad or "null and void".

The bad reasoning is the argument from figurative speech. Because my choice will be inevitable from any prior point in time, it is AS IF choosing never happened, and AS IF my choice was made before I was born, and AS IF something other than me made that choice instead of me. We humans often use figurative speech in our communication. But figurative speaking has one serious drawback: Every figurative statement is literally false. So, if we're really interested in Truth, we need to avoid misleading figurative statements.

To identify a figurative statement, all we need do is compare it to empirical reality. Is it true that choosing never happened? Of course not. We observed everyone in the restaurant actually making a choice. Was their choice made before they were born? Nope. It was made exactly when they made it, right there in the restaurant. Was their choice made by something other than themselves? Clearly not. Not only did we witness them doing the choosing, but we also saw the waiter bring the correct dinner order to the person who chose it.

So, all three of those claims, that choosing never happened, that the choice was made in advance, that something other than the person made the choice, are false. They are based upon bad reasoning.

Determinism does not actually change anything. All events are reliably caused by prior events. And the final, responsible prior cause of a deliberate act is usually the act of deliberation that precedes it.

That is right. Nor, does the fact that you are using strained logic and leaps of logic mean the reasoning is correct.

Your conclusions is based on your premise that there is a choice, even if there is deterministtion, and all the reasoning that follows it trying to reach a foregone conclusion. You can not show your reasoning isn't bad. You can not show a reason for your jumps of logic.

Straining logic in a way that does not break it is not really much of a strain. Just because it takes... Many pages... and a discussion on counting in utterly insane ways... It does not change the fact that Andrew Wiles did indeed prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

There are no leaps there in the compatibilist position, though. That's your problem.

It took a LOT of work to get there, believe me. And thankfully, I didn't have to do most of the work. Most of the work in proving free will was done by Tarn Adams. I don't know if he was intending to prove out free will in deterministic systems, but he did! I'm not even sure if he knows what he did...

But he did and that's what's important here: the fact that I can observe, in a perfectly deterministic system, a little thing that has thoughts, and wills to do things, and which  chooses from between those things in a way that if it was implemented in a neural structure actually could choose just as richly as I can when I pilot around an avatar in that simulation.

Of course, choice is not even important for free will to exist. It's just a red herring.

Choice, as regards free will, is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Urist, in the scenario in the temple, has zero choices, and needs zero choices for to hold a "will", and for that will to be "free". Or, conversely, for his will to be "constrained"

Like things such as "humans" and "neurons" are to choice, seemingly always there in our reconning of it, but neither necessary nor sufficient, so too is choice neither necessary nor sufficient to a definition of "free", "will", nor to the arrangement of a "will to originate one's own wills", which is "free will".

What is identifiable clearly as a will is any thing that is "a series of instructions unto a requirement".

The dwarf has as much: it has a series of steps it plans to take. One of those steps requires the opening of a door. Pay attention to that word "requires".

It does not choose this series of steps. It is fed this series of steps by some other thing that chooses the series of steps, namely a modified A* pathing Algorighm through mapped space.

The dwarf does not choose these steps.

Occasionally, the dwarf does choose steps, when there is a conflicting priority to the space in the time they are stepping through. When this happens, he will step around other dwarves and the like, and must make a choice of how. But today the dwarf is not going to have such a conflict.

None of Urist's steps today are chosen.

Urist also does not choose that the door is locked.

Urist had a will to fight. Arguably they chose this, but he chose it long before the scenario started.

What can be said is that the set of universes that spring forth from Urist walking through that door (really, it's a set containing a single imaginary universe) do not include the universe Urist is in.

He has a will. That will shall not meet a particular requirement, in that the door will not open. It is locked and Urist lacks any power to unlock it.

The compatibilist calls this state of his will "unfreeness" or "constraint".

If the door had been unlocked, his will would be "free" at least through the part with the door. Just out of sick curiousity, I even corrupt the universe. I unlock the door and make his will "free" and there he goes, to the dining hall, to fight... Oh, and there it is, in the fight logs, there goes Rovod's leg... Oh, now Rovod's bleeding out. Oh, he's praying now. Well, that might be literally the ONLY Dwarven prayer I've ever read and it's not even... I mean I guess I'm going to answer it though... Turns out that if his will had been free he  could have slaughtered 12 dwarves.

But he didn't.

But in the fact that "if the door was unlocked..." is a mathematically proven scenario, we have in fact validated could, choice on possibilities, and the like, this way, as well.

Not bad for playing a stupid little game.

I disagree. The entire concept is strained. You can't show that if everything is predetermined, that what someone 'chooses' is actually a choice, since they can not do anything but that action.

 

[The AntiChris]

I think you may have an unrealistic concept of 'choice'. Can you explain how we choose in the absence of reliable causation?

No one can show that there is an absense of reliable causation.

That's irrelevant.

Your concept of choice is that it cannot exist within a determined system. It would seem to follow from this that your concept of choice requires indeterminism (absence of reliable causation).

I ask again, how does choosing work in the absence of reliable causation?

 

[fromderinside]

"The mind always suspect need be as far removed from evidence as methodologically possible." ... and by all accounts he plotted a pretty good path because establishment of materiality is proof positive that mind is a contaminant.

I like to believe that I can operationally define any word I use. But I didn't get into this via Bridgman, but rather through Pragmatism, and William James's "cash value" of words. I also have a modest systems analysis background from a time when manual systems were being documented to assure that introducing computer data processing into the manual system would continue to perform all of the necessary business functions. (My interest in systems analysis was spurred by the original movie, "Cheaper By the Dozen", the story of Frank Gilbreth and his family).

You may have noticed that I refer to the ordinary notion of free will as the "operational free will", the one we use in the operation of assessing responsibility. And I describe "choosing" as an operation that inputs two or more options, applies some criteria of comparative evaluation, and, based on that evaluation outputs a single choice, usually in the form of an "I will X" where X is the thing we have set our intent upon doing.

Approaching practical matters in terms of operations and functions helps provide a practical and meaningful description of how things actually work. And I see meaning lost when philosophers get themselves lost in abstractions that divorce them from reality, such as the claim that "determinism implies that choosing doesn't happen", when there it is happening right in front of us in the restaurant. To me, that abstraction would be a demonstration of "mind as a contaminant", and it results in "hard determinism".

Pragmaticism and James are two words clanging 'self reference.' You can never get to objective from there. Systems analysis doesn't help if the system is you.

You continue with self describing using such as 'choose' and 'free will' as examples of operators. Clearly you have no idea the requirements for scientific objectivity which is the separation of self from object.

We aren't discussing. You in particular are chanting some nonsense as if it were meaningful.

Enough.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

No one can show that there is an absense of reliable causation.

Correct. And, no one can show that the customers in the restaurant are not making choices.

That is right. Nor, does the fact that you are using strained logic and leaps of logic mean the reasoning is correct.

The logic is neither leaping nor strained. I simply pointed to the evidence of the people making choices in the restaurant.

The fact that all events are reliably caused by prior events does not mean that choosing is not happening in the real world. It is really happening and we're really doing it ourselves.

Your conclusions is based on your premise that there is a choice ...

The premise has been demonstrated to be empirically true. It is not a matter of argument, but a simple observation of what is actually going on in the real world. One would have to strain the logic to come up with a notion that contradicts the obvious facts.

And that is what the hard determinist does, by creating an imaginary world in which simple cause and effect becomes a causal agent that robs us of all our freedom and control. They have created a boogeyman that sends the theist running to the supernatural and the atheist running to quantum indeterminism for escape. But determinism is not such an agent. It has no goals, no reasons, no interests to satisfy.

Causation never causes anything and determinism never determines anything. Only the actual objects and forces that make up the physical universe can cause events to happen. The notion of causation is used to describe the interactions of these objects and forces as they bring about events. The notion of determinism simply asserts that the behavior of these objects and forces will be reliable, and theoretically predictable.

We happen to be one of those physical objects that goes about in world causing events to happen. And we do so for our own goals and reasons, because we have a significant interest in the consequences of our actions. Determinism simply means that, given sufficient knowledge, our behavior under specific circumstances will be predictable. But determinism cannot assert that the behavior is not our own.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

... You can't show that if everything is predetermined, that what someone 'chooses' is actually a choice, since they can not do anything but that action.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is most likely a duck.

Choosing is an actual operation that inputs two or more options, applies some criteria of comparative evaluation, and based on that evaluation outputs a single choice. When we observe those things actually happening, we call it "choosing", and it actually produces a real choice.

The fact that a man's wife knew exactly what he would order from the menu, before he made up his mind, does not mean that he did not choose the item himself. Choosing still happened, and he did the choosing himself.

Oh...and of course, he "could" have chosen anything on the menu, but he "would" only chose the thing he actually chose. The conflation of "could" with "would" is also caused by figurative thinking: "If he never would choose anything else, it is AS IF he never could choose anything else". But, of course, he had the "ability" to order any item on the menu, even though he would inevitably order precisely what he ordered.

Universal causal necessity/inevitability is a logical fact derived from the presumption of reliable cause and effect. However, it is neither a meaningful nor a relevant fact to any human scenario. What we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, choosing to do what we choose to do. And that is not a meaningful constraint. It is not something that we can, or need to be, free of. It is basically "what we would have done anyway".

 

[ramoss]

I think you may have an unrealistic concept of 'choice'. Can you explain how we choose in the absence of reliable causation?

No one can show that there is an absense of reliable causation.

That's irrelevant.

Your concept of choice is that it cannot exist within a determined system. It would seem to follow from this that your concept of choice requires indeterminism (absence of reliable causation).

I ask again, how does choosing work in the absence of reliable causation?

That is right. Free will and determination is mutually exclusive. So, either there is no free will/choice or things are not deterministic. Chosing will work if things are probabilistic , rather than deterministic.

 

[Jarhyn]

Now, all you have to do is show that you didn't start with a false premise.

What premise are you referring to?

It can not explain how you can things can be deterministic, but you have choice at the same time.

I think you may have an unrealistic concept of 'choice'. Can you explain how we choose in the absence of reliable causation?

No one can show that there is an absense of reliable causation.

I see what you say. However, because it was predetermined, although a choice was presented , you had no choice but to choose that choice.

Yes. Determinism suggests that I had no choice but to choose what I myself decided that I would choose.

That makes the line of reasoning you are presenting null and void. Repeating bad reasoning doesn't make that reasoning suddenly true.

Just because you don't like where the reasoning leads us does not make the reasoning bad or "null and void".

The bad reasoning is the argument from figurative speech. Because my choice will be inevitable from any prior point in time, it is AS IF choosing never happened, and AS IF my choice was made before I was born, and AS IF something other than me made that choice instead of me. We humans often use figurative speech in our communication. But figurative speaking has one serious drawback: Every figurative statement is literally false. So, if we're really interested in Truth, we need to avoid misleading figurative statements.

To identify a figurative statement, all we need do is compare it to empirical reality. Is it true that choosing never happened? Of course not. We observed everyone in the restaurant actually making a choice. Was their choice made before they were born? Nope. It was made exactly when they made it, right there in the restaurant. Was their choice made by something other than themselves? Clearly not. Not only did we witness them doing the choosing, but we also saw the waiter bring the correct dinner order to the person who chose it.

So, all three of those claims, that choosing never happened, that the choice was made in advance, that something other than the person made the choice, are false. They are based upon bad reasoning.

Determinism does not actually change anything. All events are reliably caused by prior events. And the final, responsible prior cause of a deliberate act is usually the act of deliberation that precedes it.

That is right. Nor, does the fact that you are using strained logic and leaps of logic mean the reasoning is correct.

Your conclusions is based on your premise that there is a choice, even if there is deterministtion, and all the reasoning that follows it trying to reach a foregone conclusion. You can not show your reasoning isn't bad. You can not show a reason for your jumps of logic.

Straining logic in a way that does not break it is not really much of a strain. Just because it takes... Many pages... and a discussion on counting in utterly insane ways... It does not change the fact that Andrew Wiles did indeed prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

There are no leaps there in the compatibilist position, though. That's your problem.

It took a LOT of work to get there, believe me. And thankfully, I didn't have to do most of the work. Most of the work in proving free will was done by Tarn Adams. I don't know if he was intending to prove out free will in deterministic systems, but he did! I'm not even sure if he knows what he did...

But he did and that's what's important here: the fact that I can observe, in a perfectly deterministic system, a little thing that has thoughts, and wills to do things, and which  chooses from between those things in a way that if it was implemented in a neural structure actually could choose just as richly as I can when I pilot around an avatar in that simulation.

Of course, choice is not even important for free will to exist. It's just a red herring.

Choice, as regards free will, is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Urist, in the scenario in the temple, has zero choices, and needs zero choices for to hold a "will", and for that will to be "free". Or, conversely, for his will to be "constrained"

Like things such as "humans" and "neurons" are to choice, seemingly always there in our reconning of it, but neither necessary nor sufficient, so too is choice neither necessary nor sufficient to a definition of "free", "will", nor to the arrangement of a "will to originate one's own wills", which is "free will".

What is identifiable clearly as a will is any thing that is "a series of instructions unto a requirement".

The dwarf has as much: it has a series of steps it plans to take. One of those steps requires the opening of a door. Pay attention to that word "requires".

It does not choose this series of steps. It is fed this series of steps by some other thing that chooses the series of steps, namely a modified A* pathing Algorighm through mapped space.

The dwarf does not choose these steps.

Occasionally, the dwarf does choose steps, when there is a conflicting priority to the space in the time they are stepping through. When this happens, he will step around other dwarves and the like, and must make a choice of how. But today the dwarf is not going to have such a conflict.

None of Urist's steps today are chosen.

Urist also does not choose that the door is locked.

Urist had a will to fight. Arguably they chose this, but he chose it long before the scenario started.

What can be said is that the set of universes that spring forth from Urist walking through that door (really, it's a set containing a single imaginary universe) do not include the universe Urist is in.

He has a will. That will shall not meet a particular requirement, in that the door will not open. It is locked and Urist lacks any power to unlock it.

The compatibilist calls this state of his will "unfreeness" or "constraint".

If the door had been unlocked, his will would be "free" at least through the part with the door. Just out of sick curiousity, I even corrupt the universe. I unlock the door and make his will "free" and there he goes, to the dining hall, to fight... Oh, and there it is, in the fight logs, there goes Rovod's leg... Oh, now Rovod's bleeding out. Oh, he's praying now. Well, that might be literally the ONLY Dwarven prayer I've ever read and it's not even... I mean I guess I'm going to answer it though... Turns out that if his will had been free he  could have slaughtered 12 dwarves.

But he didn't.

But in the fact that "if the door was unlocked..." is a mathematically proven scenario, we have in fact validated could, choice on possibilities, and the like, this way, as well.

Not bad for playing a stupid little game.

I disagree. The entire concept is strained. You can't show that if everything is predetermined, that what someone 'chooses' is actually a choice, since they can not do anything but that action.

Important part bolded. First, choice is not required for "free" and "will" to be proven out.

Secondly, you again abandon the word "choice" and the operational definition and then beg a question in your response.

I've already discussed the choice of ListA, but the point is, deterministic choice is still choice. To declare it's not a choice just because it is deterministic is a No-True-Scotsman.

A set went in, a subset came out = choice

 

[The AntiChris]

Chosing will work if things are probabilistic , rather than deterministic.

How? The only thing indeterminism allows (in contrast to determinism) is pure chance. Nobody believes chance outcomes are chosen outcomes.

It seems you're mistaken about the nature of 'choosing'.

 

[ramoss]

Now, all you have to do is show that you didn't start with a false premise.

What premise are you referring to?

It can not explain how you can things can be deterministic, but you have choice at the same time.

I think you may have an unrealistic concept of 'choice'. Can you explain how we choose in the absence of reliable causation?

No one can show that there is an absense of reliable causation.

I see what you say. However, because it was predetermined, although a choice was presented , you had no choice but to choose that choice.

Yes. Determinism suggests that I had no choice but to choose what I myself decided that I would choose.

That makes the line of reasoning you are presenting null and void. Repeating bad reasoning doesn't make that reasoning suddenly true.

Just because you don't like where the reasoning leads us does not make the reasoning bad or "null and void".

The bad reasoning is the argument from figurative speech. Because my choice will be inevitable from any prior point in time, it is AS IF choosing never happened, and AS IF my choice was made before I was born, and AS IF something other than me made that choice instead of me. We humans often use figurative speech in our communication. But figurative speaking has one serious drawback: Every figurative statement is literally false. So, if we're really interested in Truth, we need to avoid misleading figurative statements.

To identify a figurative statement, all we need do is compare it to empirical reality. Is it true that choosing never happened? Of course not. We observed everyone in the restaurant actually making a choice. Was their choice made before they were born? Nope. It was made exactly when they made it, right there in the restaurant. Was their choice made by something other than themselves? Clearly not. Not only did we witness them doing the choosing, but we also saw the waiter bring the correct dinner order to the person who chose it.

So, all three of those claims, that choosing never happened, that the choice was made in advance, that something other than the person made the choice, are false. They are based upon bad reasoning.

Determinism does not actually change anything. All events are reliably caused by prior events. And the final, responsible prior cause of a deliberate act is usually the act of deliberation that precedes it.

That is right. Nor, does the fact that you are using strained logic and leaps of logic mean the reasoning is correct.

Your conclusions is based on your premise that there is a choice, even if there is deterministtion, and all the reasoning that follows it trying to reach a foregone conclusion. You can not show your reasoning isn't bad. You can not show a reason for your jumps of logic.

Straining logic in a way that does not break it is not really much of a strain. Just because it takes... Many pages... and a discussion on counting in utterly insane ways... It does not change the fact that Andrew Wiles did indeed prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

There are no leaps there in the compatibilist position, though. That's your problem.

It took a LOT of work to get there, believe me. And thankfully, I didn't have to do most of the work. Most of the work in proving free will was done by Tarn Adams. I don't know if he was intending to prove out free will in deterministic systems, but he did! I'm not even sure if he knows what he did...

But he did and that's what's important here: the fact that I can observe, in a perfectly deterministic system, a little thing that has thoughts, and wills to do things, and which  chooses from between those things in a way that if it was implemented in a neural structure actually could choose just as richly as I can when I pilot around an avatar in that simulation.

Of course, choice is not even important for free will to exist. It's just a red herring.

Choice, as regards free will, is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Urist, in the scenario in the temple, has zero choices, and needs zero choices for to hold a "will", and for that will to be "free". Or, conversely, for his will to be "constrained"

Like things such as "humans" and "neurons" are to choice, seemingly always there in our reconning of it, but neither necessary nor sufficient, so too is choice neither necessary nor sufficient to a definition of "free", "will", nor to the arrangement of a "will to originate one's own wills", which is "free will".

What is identifiable clearly as a will is any thing that is "a series of instructions unto a requirement".

The dwarf has as much: it has a series of steps it plans to take. One of those steps requires the opening of a door. Pay attention to that word "requires".

It does not choose this series of steps. It is fed this series of steps by some other thing that chooses the series of steps, namely a modified A* pathing Algorighm through mapped space.

The dwarf does not choose these steps.

Occasionally, the dwarf does choose steps, when there is a conflicting priority to the space in the time they are stepping through. When this happens, he will step around other dwarves and the like, and must make a choice of how. But today the dwarf is not going to have such a conflict.

None of Urist's steps today are chosen.

Urist also does not choose that the door is locked.

Urist had a will to fight. Arguably they chose this, but he chose it long before the scenario started.

What can be said is that the set of universes that spring forth from Urist walking through that door (really, it's a set containing a single imaginary universe) do not include the universe Urist is in.

He has a will. That will shall not meet a particular requirement, in that the door will not open. It is locked and Urist lacks any power to unlock it.

The compatibilist calls this state of his will "unfreeness" or "constraint".

If the door had been unlocked, his will would be "free" at least through the part with the door. Just out of sick curiousity, I even corrupt the universe. I unlock the door and make his will "free" and there he goes, to the dining hall, to fight... Oh, and there it is, in the fight logs, there goes Rovod's leg... Oh, now Rovod's bleeding out. Oh, he's praying now. Well, that might be literally the ONLY Dwarven prayer I've ever read and it's not even... I mean I guess I'm going to answer it though... Turns out that if his will had been free he  could have slaughtered 12 dwarves.

But he didn't.

But in the fact that "if the door was unlocked..." is a mathematically proven scenario, we have in fact validated could, choice on possibilities, and the like, this way, as well.

Not bad for playing a stupid little game.

I disagree. The entire concept is strained. You can't show that if everything is predetermined, that what someone 'chooses' is actually a choice, since they can not do anything but that action.

Important part bolded. First, choice is not required for "free" and "will" to be proven out.

Secondly, you again abandon the word "choice" and the operational definition and then beg a question in your response.

I've already discussed the choice of ListA, but the point is, deterministic choice is still choice. To declare it's not a choice just because it is deterministic is a No-True-Scotsman.

A set went in, a subset came out = choice

If things are predetermined,there is no choice.

 

[ramoss]

Chosing will work if things are probabilistic , rather than deterministic.

How? The only thing indeterminism allows (in contrast to determinism) is pure chance. Nobody believes chance outcomes are chosen outcomes.

It seems you're mistaken about the nature of 'choosing'.

It seems you are mistaken about the nature of determinism.

See how that works?

 

[Jarhyn]

Now, all you have to do is show that you didn't start with a false premise.

What premise are you referring to?

It can not explain how you can things can be deterministic, but you have choice at the same time.

I think you may have an unrealistic concept of 'choice'. Can you explain how we choose in the absence of reliable causation?

No one can show that there is an absense of reliable causation.

I see what you say. However, because it was predetermined, although a choice was presented , you had no choice but to choose that choice.

Yes. Determinism suggests that I had no choice but to choose what I myself decided that I would choose.

That makes the line of reasoning you are presenting null and void. Repeating bad reasoning doesn't make that reasoning suddenly true.

Just because you don't like where the reasoning leads us does not make the reasoning bad or "null and void".

The bad reasoning is the argument from figurative speech. Because my choice will be inevitable from any prior point in time, it is AS IF choosing never happened, and AS IF my choice was made before I was born, and AS IF something other than me made that choice instead of me. We humans often use figurative speech in our communication. But figurative speaking has one serious drawback: Every figurative statement is literally false. So, if we're really interested in Truth, we need to avoid misleading figurative statements.

To identify a figurative statement, all we need do is compare it to empirical reality. Is it true that choosing never happened? Of course not. We observed everyone in the restaurant actually making a choice. Was their choice made before they were born? Nope. It was made exactly when they made it, right there in the restaurant. Was their choice made by something other than themselves? Clearly not. Not only did we witness them doing the choosing, but we also saw the waiter bring the correct dinner order to the person who chose it.

So, all three of those claims, that choosing never happened, that the choice was made in advance, that something other than the person made the choice, are false. They are based upon bad reasoning.

Determinism does not actually change anything. All events are reliably caused by prior events. And the final, responsible prior cause of a deliberate act is usually the act of deliberation that precedes it.

That is right. Nor, does the fact that you are using strained logic and leaps of logic mean the reasoning is correct.

Your conclusions is based on your premise that there is a choice, even if there is deterministtion, and all the reasoning that follows it trying to reach a foregone conclusion. You can not show your reasoning isn't bad. You can not show a reason for your jumps of logic.

Straining logic in a way that does not break it is not really much of a strain. Just because it takes... Many pages... and a discussion on counting in utterly insane ways... It does not change the fact that Andrew Wiles did indeed prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

There are no leaps there in the compatibilist position, though. That's your problem.

It took a LOT of work to get there, believe me. And thankfully, I didn't have to do most of the work. Most of the work in proving free will was done by Tarn Adams. I don't know if he was intending to prove out free will in deterministic systems, but he did! I'm not even sure if he knows what he did...

But he did and that's what's important here: the fact that I can observe, in a perfectly deterministic system, a little thing that has thoughts, and wills to do things, and which  chooses from between those things in a way that if it was implemented in a neural structure actually could choose just as richly as I can when I pilot around an avatar in that simulation.

Of course, choice is not even important for free will to exist. It's just a red herring.

Choice, as regards free will, is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Urist, in the scenario in the temple, has zero choices, and needs zero choices for to hold a "will", and for that will to be "free". Or, conversely, for his will to be "constrained"

Like things such as "humans" and "neurons" are to choice, seemingly always there in our reconning of it, but neither necessary nor sufficient, so too is choice neither necessary nor sufficient to a definition of "free", "will", nor to the arrangement of a "will to originate one's own wills", which is "free will".

What is identifiable clearly as a will is any thing that is "a series of instructions unto a requirement".

The dwarf has as much: it has a series of steps it plans to take. One of those steps requires the opening of a door. Pay attention to that word "requires".

It does not choose this series of steps. It is fed this series of steps by some other thing that chooses the series of steps, namely a modified A* pathing Algorighm through mapped space.

The dwarf does not choose these steps.

Occasionally, the dwarf does choose steps, when there is a conflicting priority to the space in the time they are stepping through. When this happens, he will step around other dwarves and the like, and must make a choice of how. But today the dwarf is not going to have such a conflict.

None of Urist's steps today are chosen.

Urist also does not choose that the door is locked.

Urist had a will to fight. Arguably they chose this, but he chose it long before the scenario started.

What can be said is that the set of universes that spring forth from Urist walking through that door (really, it's a set containing a single imaginary universe) do not include the universe Urist is in.

He has a will. That will shall not meet a particular requirement, in that the door will not open. It is locked and Urist lacks any power to unlock it.

The compatibilist calls this state of his will "unfreeness" or "constraint".

If the door had been unlocked, his will would be "free" at least through the part with the door. Just out of sick curiousity, I even corrupt the universe. I unlock the door and make his will "free" and there he goes, to the dining hall, to fight... Oh, and there it is, in the fight logs, there goes Rovod's leg... Oh, now Rovod's bleeding out. Oh, he's praying now. Well, that might be literally the ONLY Dwarven prayer I've ever read and it's not even... I mean I guess I'm going to answer it though... Turns out that if his will had been free he  could have slaughtered 12 dwarves.

But he didn't.

But in the fact that "if the door was unlocked..." is a mathematically proven scenario, we have in fact validated could, choice on possibilities, and the like, this way, as well.

Not bad for playing a stupid little game.

I disagree. The entire concept is strained. You can't show that if everything is predetermined, that what someone 'chooses' is actually a choice, since they can not do anything but that action.

Important part bolded. First, choice is not required for "free" and "will" to be proven out.

Secondly, you again abandon the word "choice" and the operational definition and then beg a question in your response.

I've already discussed the choice of ListA, but the point is, deterministic choice is still choice. To declare it's not a choice just because it is deterministic is a No-True-Scotsman.

A set went in, a subset came out = choice

If things are predetermined,there is no choice.

This is a false statement, because it is figurative.

ListA satisfied both the definitions of deterministic, and choice, as presented.

See the following post:

Compatibilism: What's that About?

This has been dealt with numerous times. Yes. It has. Yet the question of menu selection came up again in the assumption that the compatibilist narrative is correct. It is not correct because, to reiterate, only one action is possible in any instance in time within a determined system...

iidb.org

 

[Marvin Edwards]

If things are predetermined, there is no choice.

If it is predetermined that you will make a choice, then you will make the choice. And you will do so because it is exactly what you wanted to do anyway. This is how determinism works.

 

[ramoss]

Now, all you have to do is show that you didn't start with a false premise.

What premise are you referring to?

It can not explain how you can things can be deterministic, but you have choice at the same time.

I think you may have an unrealistic concept of 'choice'. Can you explain how we choose in the absence of reliable causation?

No one can show that there is an absense of reliable causation.

I see what you say. However, because it was predetermined, although a choice was presented , you had no choice but to choose that choice.

Yes. Determinism suggests that I had no choice but to choose what I myself decided that I would choose.

That makes the line of reasoning you are presenting null and void. Repeating bad reasoning doesn't make that reasoning suddenly true.

Just because you don't like where the reasoning leads us does not make the reasoning bad or "null and void".

The bad reasoning is the argument from figurative speech. Because my choice will be inevitable from any prior point in time, it is AS IF choosing never happened, and AS IF my choice was made before I was born, and AS IF something other than me made that choice instead of me. We humans often use figurative speech in our communication. But figurative speaking has one serious drawback: Every figurative statement is literally false. So, if we're really interested in Truth, we need to avoid misleading figurative statements.

To identify a figurative statement, all we need do is compare it to empirical reality. Is it true that choosing never happened? Of course not. We observed everyone in the restaurant actually making a choice. Was their choice made before they were born? Nope. It was made exactly when they made it, right there in the restaurant. Was their choice made by something other than themselves? Clearly not. Not only did we witness them doing the choosing, but we also saw the waiter bring the correct dinner order to the person who chose it.

So, all three of those claims, that choosing never happened, that the choice was made in advance, that something other than the person made the choice, are false. They are based upon bad reasoning.

Determinism does not actually change anything. All events are reliably caused by prior events. And the final, responsible prior cause of a deliberate act is usually the act of deliberation that precedes it.

That is right. Nor, does the fact that you are using strained logic and leaps of logic mean the reasoning is correct.

Your conclusions is based on your premise that there is a choice, even if there is deterministtion, and all the reasoning that follows it trying to reach a foregone conclusion. You can not show your reasoning isn't bad. You can not show a reason for your jumps of logic.

Straining logic in a way that does not break it is not really much of a strain. Just because it takes... Many pages... and a discussion on counting in utterly insane ways... It does not change the fact that Andrew Wiles did indeed prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

There are no leaps there in the compatibilist position, though. That's your problem.

It took a LOT of work to get there, believe me. And thankfully, I didn't have to do most of the work. Most of the work in proving free will was done by Tarn Adams. I don't know if he was intending to prove out free will in deterministic systems, but he did! I'm not even sure if he knows what he did...

But he did and that's what's important here: the fact that I can observe, in a perfectly deterministic system, a little thing that has thoughts, and wills to do things, and which  chooses from between those things in a way that if it was implemented in a neural structure actually could choose just as richly as I can when I pilot around an avatar in that simulation.

Of course, choice is not even important for free will to exist. It's just a red herring.

Choice, as regards free will, is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Urist, in the scenario in the temple, has zero choices, and needs zero choices for to hold a "will", and for that will to be "free". Or, conversely, for his will to be "constrained"

Like things such as "humans" and "neurons" are to choice, seemingly always there in our reconning of it, but neither necessary nor sufficient, so too is choice neither necessary nor sufficient to a definition of "free", "will", nor to the arrangement of a "will to originate one's own wills", which is "free will".

What is identifiable clearly as a will is any thing that is "a series of instructions unto a requirement".

The dwarf has as much: it has a series of steps it plans to take. One of those steps requires the opening of a door. Pay attention to that word "requires".

It does not choose this series of steps. It is fed this series of steps by some other thing that chooses the series of steps, namely a modified A* pathing Algorighm through mapped space.

The dwarf does not choose these steps.

Occasionally, the dwarf does choose steps, when there is a conflicting priority to the space in the time they are stepping through. When this happens, he will step around other dwarves and the like, and must make a choice of how. But today the dwarf is not going to have such a conflict.

None of Urist's steps today are chosen.

Urist also does not choose that the door is locked.

Urist had a will to fight. Arguably they chose this, but he chose it long before the scenario started.

What can be said is that the set of universes that spring forth from Urist walking through that door (really, it's a set containing a single imaginary universe) do not include the universe Urist is in.

He has a will. That will shall not meet a particular requirement, in that the door will not open. It is locked and Urist lacks any power to unlock it.

The compatibilist calls this state of his will "unfreeness" or "constraint".

If the door had been unlocked, his will would be "free" at least through the part with the door. Just out of sick curiousity, I even corrupt the universe. I unlock the door and make his will "free" and there he goes, to the dining hall, to fight... Oh, and there it is, in the fight logs, there goes Rovod's leg... Oh, now Rovod's bleeding out. Oh, he's praying now. Well, that might be literally the ONLY Dwarven prayer I've ever read and it's not even... I mean I guess I'm going to answer it though... Turns out that if his will had been free he  could have slaughtered 12 dwarves.

But he didn't.

But in the fact that "if the door was unlocked..." is a mathematically proven scenario, we have in fact validated could, choice on possibilities, and the like, this way, as well.

Not bad for playing a stupid little game.

I disagree. The entire concept is strained. You can't show that if everything is predetermined, that what someone 'chooses' is actually a choice, since they can not do anything but that action.

Important part bolded. First, choice is not required for "free" and "will" to be proven out.

Secondly, you again abandon the word "choice" and the operational definition and then beg a question in your response.

I've already discussed the choice of ListA, but the point is, deterministic choice is still choice. To declare it's not a choice just because it is deterministic is a No-True-Scotsman.

A set went in, a subset came out = choice

If things are predetermined,there is no choice.

This is a false statement, because it is figurative.

ListA satisfied both the definitions of deterministic, and choice, as presented.

See the following post:

Compatibilism: What's that About?

This has been dealt with numerous times. Yes. It has. Yet the question of menu selection came up again in the assumption that the compatibilist narrative is correct. It is not correct because, to reiterate, only one action is possible in any instance in time within a determined system...

iidb.org

That's what compatablism is about. However, that makes an axiom that is not provable or disprovable. I reject that axiom.
I see incompatablism as more reasonable.

 

[ramoss]

If things are predetermined, there is no choice.

If it is predetermined that you will make a choice, then you will make the choice. And you will do so because it is exactly what you wanted to do anyway. This is how determinism works.

However, you do not have the choice on if you want to do something or not. Your desire is predetermined by forces beyond your control.
You are dancing to invisible strings you don't see.

 

[Jarhyn]

Now, all you have to do is show that you didn't start with a false premise.

What premise are you referring to?

It can not explain how you can things can be deterministic, but you have choice at the same time.

I think you may have an unrealistic concept of 'choice'. Can you explain how we choose in the absence of reliable causation?

No one can show that there is an absense of reliable causation.

I see what you say. However, because it was predetermined, although a choice was presented , you had no choice but to choose that choice.

Yes. Determinism suggests that I had no choice but to choose what I myself decided that I would choose.

That makes the line of reasoning you are presenting null and void. Repeating bad reasoning doesn't make that reasoning suddenly true.

Just because you don't like where the reasoning leads us does not make the reasoning bad or "null and void".

The bad reasoning is the argument from figurative speech. Because my choice will be inevitable from any prior point in time, it is AS IF choosing never happened, and AS IF my choice was made before I was born, and AS IF something other than me made that choice instead of me. We humans often use figurative speech in our communication. But figurative speaking has one serious drawback: Every figurative statement is literally false. So, if we're really interested in Truth, we need to avoid misleading figurative statements.

To identify a figurative statement, all we need do is compare it to empirical reality. Is it true that choosing never happened? Of course not. We observed everyone in the restaurant actually making a choice. Was their choice made before they were born? Nope. It was made exactly when they made it, right there in the restaurant. Was their choice made by something other than themselves? Clearly not. Not only did we witness them doing the choosing, but we also saw the waiter bring the correct dinner order to the person who chose it.

So, all three of those claims, that choosing never happened, that the choice was made in advance, that something other than the person made the choice, are false. They are based upon bad reasoning.

Determinism does not actually change anything. All events are reliably caused by prior events. And the final, responsible prior cause of a deliberate act is usually the act of deliberation that precedes it.

That is right. Nor, does the fact that you are using strained logic and leaps of logic mean the reasoning is correct.

Your conclusions is based on your premise that there is a choice, even if there is deterministtion, and all the reasoning that follows it trying to reach a foregone conclusion. You can not show your reasoning isn't bad. You can not show a reason for your jumps of logic.

Straining logic in a way that does not break it is not really much of a strain. Just because it takes... Many pages... and a discussion on counting in utterly insane ways... It does not change the fact that Andrew Wiles did indeed prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

There are no leaps there in the compatibilist position, though. That's your problem.

It took a LOT of work to get there, believe me. And thankfully, I didn't have to do most of the work. Most of the work in proving free will was done by Tarn Adams. I don't know if he was intending to prove out free will in deterministic systems, but he did! I'm not even sure if he knows what he did...

But he did and that's what's important here: the fact that I can observe, in a perfectly deterministic system, a little thing that has thoughts, and wills to do things, and which  chooses from between those things in a way that if it was implemented in a neural structure actually could choose just as richly as I can when I pilot around an avatar in that simulation.

Of course, choice is not even important for free will to exist. It's just a red herring.

Choice, as regards free will, is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Urist, in the scenario in the temple, has zero choices, and needs zero choices for to hold a "will", and for that will to be "free". Or, conversely, for his will to be "constrained"

Like things such as "humans" and "neurons" are to choice, seemingly always there in our reconning of it, but neither necessary nor sufficient, so too is choice neither necessary nor sufficient to a definition of "free", "will", nor to the arrangement of a "will to originate one's own wills", which is "free will".

What is identifiable clearly as a will is any thing that is "a series of instructions unto a requirement".

The dwarf has as much: it has a series of steps it plans to take. One of those steps requires the opening of a door. Pay attention to that word "requires".

It does not choose this series of steps. It is fed this series of steps by some other thing that chooses the series of steps, namely a modified A* pathing Algorighm through mapped space.

The dwarf does not choose these steps.

Occasionally, the dwarf does choose steps, when there is a conflicting priority to the space in the time they are stepping through. When this happens, he will step around other dwarves and the like, and must make a choice of how. But today the dwarf is not going to have such a conflict.

None of Urist's steps today are chosen.

Urist also does not choose that the door is locked.

Urist had a will to fight. Arguably they chose this, but he chose it long before the scenario started.

What can be said is that the set of universes that spring forth from Urist walking through that door (really, it's a set containing a single imaginary universe) do not include the universe Urist is in.

He has a will. That will shall not meet a particular requirement, in that the door will not open. It is locked and Urist lacks any power to unlock it.

The compatibilist calls this state of his will "unfreeness" or "constraint".

If the door had been unlocked, his will would be "free" at least through the part with the door. Just out of sick curiousity, I even corrupt the universe. I unlock the door and make his will "free" and there he goes, to the dining hall, to fight... Oh, and there it is, in the fight logs, there goes Rovod's leg... Oh, now Rovod's bleeding out. Oh, he's praying now. Well, that might be literally the ONLY Dwarven prayer I've ever read and it's not even... I mean I guess I'm going to answer it though... Turns out that if his will had been free he  could have slaughtered 12 dwarves.

But he didn't.

But in the fact that "if the door was unlocked..." is a mathematically proven scenario, we have in fact validated could, choice on possibilities, and the like, this way, as well.

Not bad for playing a stupid little game.

I disagree. The entire concept is strained. You can't show that if everything is predetermined, that what someone 'chooses' is actually a choice, since they can not do anything but that action.

Important part bolded. First, choice is not required for "free" and "will" to be proven out.

Secondly, you again abandon the word "choice" and the operational definition and then beg a question in your response.

I've already discussed the choice of ListA, but the point is, deterministic choice is still choice. To declare it's not a choice just because it is deterministic is a No-True-Scotsman.

A set went in, a subset came out = choice

If things are predetermined,there is no choice.

This is a false statement, because it is figurative.

ListA satisfied both the definitions of deterministic, and choice, as presented.

See the following post:

Compatibilism: What's that About?

This has been dealt with numerous times. Yes. It has. Yet the question of menu selection came up again in the assumption that the compatibilist narrative is correct. It is not correct because, to reiterate, only one action is possible in any instance in time within a determined system...

iidb.org

That's what compatablism is about. However, that makes an axiom that is not provable or disprovable. I reject that axiom.
I see incompatablism as more reasonable.

It's not an axiom, it's just a definition, a primitive concept. You could absolutely disprove it by applying it and finding a contradiction despite it's application...

But you won't because there's no contradiction there. It's a smooth surface without a chink.