Demystifying Determinism

[DBT]

Wow, you don't seem to grasp that experiences like will or desire are denied as being steps in the process of the evolution of events.

You have to want to do something before you do it. It is the seed that grows into the tree of doing it.

Yes but there is a whole line or web of events that not only bring you to the point of not only wanting something, but precisely what you want. You don't choose your want, it is formed unconsciously and brought to consciousness as a desire.

You want is not the driver, it is the experience. That is the point.

You do not even need to be conscious of it. But it is clear that without the automation script (the will) or the state indicator (the desire), the machine will not do the dance.

Action is not chosen or regulated through an act will regardless of the process being conscious or unconscious. Will is merely the prompt to act, a necessary step in the necessary process of performing necessary actions.

Whatever you do, you do necessarily, not because it's a choice.

That is not free will, yet the compatibilist asserts it regardless.

 

[DBT]

\

You have shown nothing.

Perhaps one thing; the knack of misrepresenting incompatibilism, which includes whatever I happen to say, quote or cite, even while brushing aside or rationalizing inner necessity as the ultimate restriction on choice and the notion of free will.

''An action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents.''

''The compatibilist might say because those are influences that are “outside” of the person, but this misses the entire point brought up by the free will skeptic, which is that ALL environmental conditions that help lead to a person’s brain state at any given moment are “outside of the person”, and the genes a person has was provided rather than decided.''

The patience is mine.

I see you still can’t tell us who or what made that building.

No surprise. Because your hard determinism has no answer for this simple question.

I have addressed your example several times. You disappear for a while, then come back and pretend it didn't happen. Now you should go back and read what I said and instead of pretending that nothing happened, just respond to what I said. That would be the reasonable thing to do.

Even now you ignored what I quoted, addressing nothing, just more sniping.

 

[DBT]

You don't choose your urges and prompts, desire and will....these things are formed prior to conscious report.

By who, or what?

(Hint: My subconscious is still "me")

Neural networks. It makes no difference to the issue of free will that your makeup includes the neural networks of a brain.

The point is that it is the state and condition of a brain, any brain, that determines its output, be the behavioral output adaptive or maladaptive.

There is no choice in the matter of function, which is determined by architecture and information input.

 

[DBT]

You've been to the restaurant. You've seen the people choosing from a literal menu of possibilities what they will order for dinner. For you or Peter Van Inwagen or any other "philosopher" to claim that choosing is not happening is literally delusional.

This has been addressed a number of times.

... according to your own definition, there are no alternate actions at any point in the progression of events within a deterministic system.

That remains correct. There is no alternative to opening the restaurant menu. There is no alternative to considering the alternatives listed on the menu as real possibilities. There is no alternative to choosing for ourselves what we will order. There is no alternative to telling the Waiter what we "will" have for dinner. There is no alternative to having our dinner and paying the cashier on the way out.

As each and every step of the 'consideration' process must necessarily result in the inevitable action, the item you order, the 'real possibilities' of the menu are someone else's necessity.

Nobody, according to your own description, has an alternative in any given instance of action.

Each according to their own non-chosen state and condition...including the related necessary thoughts and actions being necessarily experienced.

That's determinism.

It is certainly not free will.

 

[Jarhyn]

Yes but there is a whole line or web of events that not only bring you to the point of not only wanting something, but precisely what you want

And that line of events somewhere inexorably includes you evaluating things and making a choice of them as to which one you precisely want.

Sometimes you precisely want ALL of them! But of mutually exclusive things, a choice must be made, lest you get NONE.

Sometimes the wise person doesn't even choose what they want most, or even what they want at all.

You don't choose your want, it is formed unconsciously and brought to consciousness as a desire

It is spurious to claim that just because I have parts that act before I am consciously aware of them, that these are not part of "me, choosing what I want".

There are plenty of "unconscious" desires I have that I have learned to ferret out and analyze.

It is still your face, making the expressions you make, even if you never look in a mirror to see a reflection of it.

It is still your choice, your mind making the decisions and nobody else's in that moment, when you decide what you want, even if you never look into your narration function to see a reflection of it.

Action is not chosen or regulated through an act will regardless of the process being conscious or unconscious. Will is merely the prompt to act, a necessary step in the necessary process of performing necessary actions.

When the will is a prompt to the action of "build a will" it is a prompt to choose, because choice is itself an action!

Because an action is not necessary at all points in time and at all times, it can be readily observed that such actions that don't happen at every point in time in exactly the same way are not "necessary actions" but "contingent actions".

Such actions are contingent on what was there before. And this contingent allows the consideration "well, if there was different stuff here, what would be the action?"

In fact this model is just as applicable to the consideration of "where there is different stuff other than the stuff 'here', what is the action?"

As long as there are momentary local differences, as long as the universe is not a homogeneous blob with no distinct location, we can observe that what happens is contingent on what is there, that it is not "necessary".

 

[Marvin Edwards]

This has been addressed a number of times.

That's typically what happens when one person fails to acknowledge that they have heard and understand what the other person is saying.

I have heard what you and Peter Van Inwagen and Albert Einstein and Baruch Spinoza and Trick Slattery and others whom you've quoted are saying.

You are all saying that if our choice was causally necessary and thus inevitable, then it is as if choosing was never happening. The problem with that claim is that we can observe choosing actually happening. So, the claim is false, and the notion that choosing is not happening is apparently a delusion.

You are all saying that if our choice was causally necessary and thus inevitable, then it is as if the choice had already been made for us, by someone or something else, long ago. The problem with that claim is that we cannot get that imaginary someone or something else to pay for the dinner that we ordered. We alone did the actual choosing and the ordering, so we alone are held responsible for the dinner bill.

You are all saying that if our choice was causally necessary and thus inevitable, then it is as if we could not have made any other choice. The problem with that claim is that it exaggerates the effect of causal necessity to the point of eliminating the notion of multiple possibilities. The notion of multiple possibilities is essential to intelligence. It is built into logical operations like choosing, planning, inventing, designing, etc. It is how we deal logically with matters of uncertainty as to what will happen or what we will choose to do. The correct statement is that we "would not have" made any other choice, even though we certainly "could have" chosen something else.

But you ignore these issues. Instead, you simply repeat the same claims over an over, as if they had never been addressed.

For example:

... according to your own definition, there are no alternate actions at any point in the progression of events within a deterministic system.

Choosing inputs multiple options, the many things we can choose, and outputs a single choice, the one thing we will choose. No alternate actions will be taken, even though there will always be alternative actions that actually can be taken.

As each and every step of the 'consideration' process must necessarily result in the inevitable action, the item you order, the 'real possibilities' of the menu are someone else's necessity.

The restaurant menu is the same for every customer. It lists the many dinners that every customer can order. It is up to the customers to decide for themselves what they will order. The decision process is unique to each customer. They will each have their own taste preferences, their own dietary goals, their own prior meals earlier in the day, etc. These become the reasons that causally determine what they will order for dinner tonight.

Choosing is a deterministic process in which each thought and feeling during our consideration of the alternatives is reliably caused by our prior thoughts and feelings. By logical necessity, there will be two or more alternatives that we can choose, and one alternative that we will choose.

Nobody, according to your own description, has an alternative in any given instance of action.

As long as we are talking about what "will" happen, there are no alternatives. But as soon as we shift to speaking of what "can" happen, there are always multiple alternatives. We often do not know what will happen, so we shift from the context of what will happen to what can happen, in order to be better prepared for what does happen.

An alternative is a possibility, something that can happen or that can be chosen. The notion of "alternative" exists only within the context of possibilities.

When a determinist conflates the multiple things that can happen with the single thing that will happen, telling us that what can happen is limited to what will happen, they create a paradox that breaks the logical intelligence required to perform choosing, planning, designing, etc. And, since this intelligence has evolved by natural selection to enhance our survival as a species, I suggest we avoid destroying it.

Each according to their own non-chosen state and condition...including the related necessary thoughts and actions being necessarily experienced.

Perhaps you do not realize that the thoughts and feelings themselves alter the state and condition of our own brains. If you've ever studied for an exam, then you must be aware that you are able to reinforce and strengthen the neural paths that will help you to recall the relevant facts when you read the questions on tomorrow's test. By your deliberate choice to study, you have altered the state and condition of your own brain.

Every choice we make, and every action we take, effects changes in the state and condition of our own brain. From the moment we are born, we are active participants in our own creation.

As to determinism and free will, they are compatible when correctly defined and understood. Determinism simply asserts that all events are reliably caused by prior events. Free will is the event in which a person decides for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. When a person is free to decide for themselves what they will do, then their choice will be reliably caused by their own goals and their own reasons. Thus, both determinism and free will are fully satisfied.

 

[bilby]

You don't choose your urges and prompts, desire and will....these things are formed prior to conscious report.

By who, or what?

(Hint: My subconscious is still "me")

Neural networks. It makes no difference to the issue of free will that your makeup includes the neural networks of a brain.

The point is that it is the state and condition of a brain, any brain, that determines its output, be the behavioral output adaptive or maladaptive.

So it's not me that does stuff; It's my brain.

There is no choice in the matter of function, which is determined by architecture and information input.

There's also no component of my car that's a car.

I don't need to have had any choice in how my brain is structured, nor what inputs it is exposed to, in order for it to be able to make choices.

My legs have no walking in their architecture. My eyes have no seeing in theirs. My ears don't contain one single molecule of hearing.

My brain, (that is to say, me) makes choices. I didn't get a choice in this; It does so whether I like it or not.

 

[pood]

\

You have shown nothing.

Perhaps one thing; the knack of misrepresenting incompatibilism, which includes whatever I happen to say, quote or cite, even while brushing aside or rationalizing inner necessity as the ultimate restriction on choice and the notion of free will.

''An action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents.''

''The compatibilist might say because those are influences that are “outside” of the person, but this misses the entire point brought up by the free will skeptic, which is that ALL environmental conditions that help lead to a person’s brain state at any given moment are “outside of the person”, and the genes a person has was provided rather than decided.''

The patience is mine.

I see you still can’t tell us who or what made that building.

No surprise. Because your hard determinism has no answer for this simple question.

I have addressed your example several times. You disappear for a while, then come back and pretend it didn't happen. Now you should go back and read what I said and instead of pretending that nothing happened, just respond to what I said. That would be the reasonable thing to do.

Even now you ignored what I quoted, addressing nothing, just more sniping.

But you didn’t address it. If you did, point me to it. Or just say it here:

Who, or what, designed and built the building, and how did that happen, if Roark was unable to make choices?

Simple question.

 

[pood]

As for “disappearing for awhile,” I’ve made many, many posts in this thread, but I have other things to do with my time than obsessively talk to someone who can’t understand the difference between “will” and “must.” A dictionary is your friend.

 

[DBT]

Yes but there is a whole line or web of events that not only bring you to the point of not only wanting something, but precisely what you want

And that line of events somewhere inexorably includes you evaluating things and making a choice of them as to which one you precisely want.

Yes, but the necessitated evaluation process has only one path and one conclusion. The inevitable evaluation process must necessarily lead to the inevitable conclusion.

That is the point. This is not free will.

You cannot assert free will when the process and the conclusion is inevitable.

Nothing is being freely willed, yet free will is asserted by compatibilists.

Sometimes you precisely want ALL of them! But of mutually exclusive things, a choice must be made, lest you get NONE.

You miss the point. Given determinism, whatever happens, happens inevitably, necessarily, fixed by an inexorable progression of events that have no alternatives.

That is the implications of determinism as defined by compatibilists even as they try to get around the terms and conditions of their definition.

Sometimes the wise person doesn't even choose what they want most, or even what they want at all.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph.....!

 

[DBT]

\

You have shown nothing.

Perhaps one thing; the knack of misrepresenting incompatibilism, which includes whatever I happen to say, quote or cite, even while brushing aside or rationalizing inner necessity as the ultimate restriction on choice and the notion of free will.

''An action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents.''

''The compatibilist might say because those are influences that are “outside” of the person, but this misses the entire point brought up by the free will skeptic, which is that ALL environmental conditions that help lead to a person’s brain state at any given moment are “outside of the person”, and the genes a person has was provided rather than decided.''

The patience is mine.

I see you still can’t tell us who or what made that building.

No surprise. Because your hard determinism has no answer for this simple question.

I have addressed your example several times. You disappear for a while, then come back and pretend it didn't happen. Now you should go back and read what I said and instead of pretending that nothing happened, just respond to what I said. That would be the reasonable thing to do.

Even now you ignored what I quoted, addressing nothing, just more sniping.

But you didn’t address it. If you did, point me to it. Or just say it here:

Who, or what, designed and built the building, and how did that happen, if Roark was unable to make choices?

Simple question.

I addressed it several times, Nor am I searching through numerous posts in several threads to indulge you. You ignored my reply several times. Just as you ignore anything that I quote and cite.

The explanation is not difficult. It's right there in the quotes I posted a couple of days ago, which instead of reading and considering the implications of what was said in relation to your example, you simply ignored it.

 

[DBT]

You don't choose your urges and prompts, desire and will....these things are formed prior to conscious report.

By who, or what?

(Hint: My subconscious is still "me")

Neural networks. It makes no difference to the issue of free will that your makeup includes the neural networks of a brain.

The point is that it is the state and condition of a brain, any brain, that determines its output, be the behavioral output adaptive or maladaptive.

So it's not me that does stuff; It's my brain.

That's not what I said, and you know it. Read and try again

There is no choice in the matter of function, which is determined by architecture and information input.

There's also no component of my car that's a car.

Irrelevant to agency, the nature and function of will and response.

I don't need to have had any choice in how my brain is structured, nor what inputs it is exposed to, in order for it to be able to make choices.

There is no choice because the process of realizing actions has no alternatives. It is an inevitable process, a singular path to a foregone conclusion. Whatever happens, must happen.

This is not according to me, but how compatibilists define determinism.

Compatibilists are by definition determinists.


''To a determinist, all choice is illusory. The literal meaning of choice is that there are multiple options, and the person selects one of them. Thus, choice requires multiple possible outcomes, which is a no-no to determinism. To the determinist, the march of causality will make one outcome inevitable, and so it is wrong to believe that anything else was possible. The chooser does not yet know which option he or she is going to choose, hence the subjective experience of choice. Thus, the subjective choosing is simply a matter of one's own ignorance - ignorance that those other outcomes are not really possibilities at all.''

The only difference is that compatibilists as 'determinists' try to circumvent the terms of their own definition

My legs have no walking in their architecture. My eyes have no seeing in theirs. My ears don't contain one single molecule of hearing.

My brain, (that is to say, me) makes choices. I didn't get a choice in this; It does so whether I like it or not.

Nah, that's not even close. Please read the given terms and try again.

''Determinism means that events will proceed naturally (as if "fixed as a matter of natural law") and reliably ("without deviation).'' - Marvin Edwards.

Jarhyn - ''A deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system.''

What Does Deterministic System Mean?
''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs.''

 

[DBT]

This has been addressed a number of times.

That's typically what happens when one person fails to acknowledge that they have heard and understand what the other person is saying.

I have heard what you and Peter Van Inwagen and Albert Einstein and Baruch Spinoza and Trick Slattery and others whom you've quoted are saying.

You are all saying that if our choice was causally necessary and thus inevitable, then it is as if choosing was never happening. The problem with that claim is that we can observe choosing actually happening. So, the claim is false, and the notion that choosing is not happening is apparently a delusion.

You are all saying that if our choice was causally necessary and thus inevitable, then it is as if the choice had already been made for us, by someone or something else, long ago. The problem with that claim is that we cannot get that imaginary someone or something else to pay for the dinner that we ordered. We alone did the actual choosing and the ordering, so we alone are held responsible for the dinner bill.

You are all saying that if our choice was causally necessary and thus inevitable, then it is as if we could not have made any other choice. The problem with that claim is that it exaggerates the effect of causal necessity to the point of eliminating the notion of multiple possibilities. The notion of multiple possibilities is essential to intelligence. It is built into logical operations like choosing, planning, inventing, designing, etc. It is how we deal logically with matters of uncertainty as to what will happen or what we will choose to do. The correct statement is that we "would not have" made any other choice, even though we certainly "could have" chosen something else.

But you ignore these issues. Instead, you simply repeat the same claims over an over, as if they had never been addressed.

For example:

... according to your own definition, there are no alternate actions at any point in the progression of events within a deterministic system.

Choosing inputs multiple options, the many things we can choose, and outputs a single choice, the one thing we will choose. No alternate actions will be taken, even though there will always be alternative actions that actually can be taken.

As each and every step of the 'consideration' process must necessarily result in the inevitable action, the item you order, the 'real possibilities' of the menu are someone else's necessity.

The restaurant menu is the same for every customer. It lists the many dinners that every customer can order. It is up to the customers to decide for themselves what they will order. The decision process is unique to each customer. They will each have their own taste preferences, their own dietary goals, their own prior meals earlier in the day, etc. These become the reasons that causally determine what they will order for dinner tonight.

Choosing is a deterministic process in which each thought and feeling during our consideration of the alternatives is reliably caused by our prior thoughts and feelings. By logical necessity, there will be two or more alternatives that we can choose, and one alternative that we will choose.

Nobody, according to your own description, has an alternative in any given instance of action.

As long as we are talking about what "will" happen, there are no alternatives. But as soon as we shift to speaking of what "can" happen, there are always multiple alternatives. We often do not know what will happen, so we shift from the context of what will happen to what can happen, in order to be better prepared for what does happen.

An alternative is a possibility, something that can happen or that can be chosen. The notion of "alternative" exists only within the context of possibilities.

When a determinist conflates the multiple things that can happen with the single thing that will happen, telling us that what can happen is limited to what will happen, they create a paradox that breaks the logical intelligence required to perform choosing, planning, designing, etc. And, since this intelligence has evolved by natural selection to enhance our survival as a species, I suggest we avoid destroying it.

There are no multiple things that can happen in any given instance in time and place. Any number of different things can happen at different times and different places.

A restaurant may have a number of customers ordering a number of different items from the menu, which may have a number of options, yet in any given instance each and every order is the only possible action.

That's the terms of your definition.

'Will happen' in determinism is equivalent to 'must happen as determined'

What has been determined to happen is not open for choice or alternative actions.

Each according to their own non-chosen state and condition...including the related necessary thoughts and actions being necessarily experienced.

Perhaps you do not realize that the thoughts and feelings themselves alter the state and condition of our own brains. If you've ever studied for an exam, then you must be aware that you are able to reinforce and strengthen the neural paths that will help you to recall the relevant facts when you read the questions on tomorrow's test. By your deliberate choice to study, you have altered the state and condition of your own brain.

My point is that thoughts, feelings and actions are expressions of the state and condition of a brain in any given instance in time, which is not a matter of will, wish, want or a matter of 'free will.'

That is what I have been arguing all along and why I quote experiments and research from neuroscience.

Every choice we make, and every action we take, effects changes in the state and condition of our own brain. From the moment we are born, we are active participants in our own creation.

There are no choices because every step of the process of event and response has no alternatives.

Every event and every response must go precisely as determined.

There is no choice in how the system evolves, progresses or develops.

As to determinism and free will, they are compatible when correctly defined and understood. Determinism simply asserts that all events are reliably caused by prior events. Free will is the event in which a person decides for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. When a person is free to decide for themselves what they will do, then their choice will be reliably caused by their own goals and their own reasons. Thus, both determinism and free will are fully satisfied.

The problem lies in trying to reconcile two concepts that are inherently incompatible.

 

[Jarhyn]

Yes but there is a whole line or web of events that not only bring you to the point of not only wanting something, but precisely what you want

And that line of events somewhere inexorably includes you evaluating things and making a choice of them as to which one you precisely want.

Sometimes you precisely want ALL of them! But of mutually exclusive things, a choice must be made, lest you get NONE.

Sometimes the wise person doesn't even choose what they want most, or even what they want at all.

You don't choose your want, it is formed unconsciously and brought to consciousness as a desire

It is spurious to claim that just because I have parts that act before I am consciously aware of them, that these are not part of "me, choosing what I want".

There are plenty of "unconscious" desires I have that I have learned to ferret out and analyze.

It is still your face, making the expressions you make, even if you never look in a mirror to see a reflection of it.

It is still your choice, your mind making the decisions and nobody else's in that moment, when you decide what you want, even if you never look into your narration function to see a reflection of it.

Action is not chosen or regulated through an act will regardless of the process being conscious or unconscious. Will is merely the prompt to act, a necessary step in the necessary process of performing necessary actions.

When the will is a prompt to the action of "build a will" it is a prompt to choose, because choice is itself an action!

Because an action is not necessary at all points in time and at all times, it can be readily observed that such actions that don't happen at every point in time in exactly the same way are not "necessary actions" but "contingent actions".

Such actions are contingent on what was there before. And this contingent allows the consideration "well, if there was different stuff here, what would be the action?"

In fact this model is just as applicable to the consideration of "where there is different stuff other than the stuff 'here', what is the action?"

As long as there are momentary local differences, as long as the universe is not a homogeneous blob with no distinct location, we can observe that what happens is contingent on what is there, that it is not "necessary".

This has been addressed a number of times.

That's typically what happens when one person fails to acknowledge that they have heard and understand what the other person is saying.

I have heard what you and Peter Van Inwagen and Albert Einstein and Baruch Spinoza and Trick Slattery and others whom you've quoted are saying.

You are all saying that if our choice was causally necessary and thus inevitable, then it is as if choosing was never happening. The problem with that claim is that we can observe choosing actually happening. So, the claim is false, and the notion that choosing is not happening is apparently a delusion.

You are all saying that if our choice was causally necessary and thus inevitable, then it is as if the choice had already been made for us, by someone or something else, long ago. The problem with that claim is that we cannot get that imaginary someone or something else to pay for the dinner that we ordered. We alone did the actual choosing and the ordering, so we alone are held responsible for the dinner bill.

You are all saying that if our choice was causally necessary and thus inevitable, then it is as if we could not have made any other choice. The problem with that claim is that it exaggerates the effect of causal necessity to the point of eliminating the notion of multiple possibilities. The notion of multiple possibilities is essential to intelligence. It is built into logical operations like choosing, planning, inventing, designing, etc. It is how we deal logically with matters of uncertainty as to what will happen or what we will choose to do. The correct statement is that we "would not have" made any other choice, even though we certainly "could have" chosen something else.

But you ignore these issues. Instead, you simply repeat the same claims over an over, as if they had never been addressed.

For example:

... according to your own definition, there are no alternate actions at any point in the progression of events within a deterministic system.

Choosing inputs multiple options, the many things we can choose, and outputs a single choice, the one thing we will choose. No alternate actions will be taken, even though there will always be alternative actions that actually can be taken.

As each and every step of the 'consideration' process must necessarily result in the inevitable action, the item you order, the 'real possibilities' of the menu are someone else's necessity.

The restaurant menu is the same for every customer. It lists the many dinners that every customer can order. It is up to the customers to decide for themselves what they will order. The decision process is unique to each customer. They will each have their own taste preferences, their own dietary goals, their own prior meals earlier in the day, etc. These become the reasons that causally determine what they will order for dinner tonight.

Choosing is a deterministic process in which each thought and feeling during our consideration of the alternatives is reliably caused by our prior thoughts and feelings. By logical necessity, there will be two or more alternatives that we can choose, and one alternative that we will choose.

Nobody, according to your own description, has an alternative in any given instance of action.

As long as we are talking about what "will" happen, there are no alternatives. But as soon as we shift to speaking of what "can" happen, there are always multiple alternatives. We often do not know what will happen, so we shift from the context of what will happen to what can happen, in order to be better prepared for what does happen.

An alternative is a possibility, something that can happen or that can be chosen. The notion of "alternative" exists only within the context of possibilities.

When a determinist conflates the multiple things that can happen with the single thing that will happen, telling us that what can happen is limited to what will happen, they create a paradox that breaks the logical intelligence required to perform choosing, planning, designing, etc. And, since this intelligence has evolved by natural selection to enhance our survival as a species, I suggest we avoid destroying it.

Each according to their own non-chosen state and condition...including the related necessary thoughts and actions being necessarily experienced.

Perhaps you do not realize that the thoughts and feelings themselves alter the state and condition of our own brains. If you've ever studied for an exam, then you must be aware that you are able to reinforce and strengthen the neural paths that will help you to recall the relevant facts when you read the questions on tomorrow's test. By your deliberate choice to study, you have altered the state and condition of your own brain.

Every choice we make, and every action we take, effects changes in the state and condition of our own brain. From the moment we are born, we are active participants in our own creation.

As to determinism and free will, they are compatible when correctly defined and understood. Determinism simply asserts that all events are reliably caused by prior events. Free will is the event in which a person decides for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. When a person is free to decide for themselves what they will do, then their choice will be reliably caused by their own goals and their own reasons. Thus, both determinism and free will are fully satisfied.

You don't choose your urges and prompts, desire and will....these things are formed prior to conscious report.

By who, or what?

(Hint: My subconscious is still "me")

Neural networks. It makes no difference to the issue of free will that your makeup includes the neural networks of a brain.

The point is that it is the state and condition of a brain, any brain, that determines its output, be the behavioral output adaptive or maladaptive.

So it's not me that does stuff; It's my brain.

There is no choice in the matter of function, which is determined by architecture and information input.

There's also no component of my car that's a car.

I don't need to have had any choice in how my brain is structured, nor what inputs it is exposed to, in order for it to be able to make choices.

My legs have no walking in their architecture. My eyes have no seeing in theirs. My ears don't contain one single molecule of hearing.

My brain, (that is to say, me) makes choices. I didn't get a choice in this; It does so whether I like it or not.

As for “disappearing for awhile,” I’ve made many, many posts in this thread, but I have other things to do with my time than obsessively talk to someone who can’t understand the difference between “will” and “must.” A dictionary is your friend.

Again. because DBT has a problem with last-word-ism spam.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The restaurant menu is the same for every customer. It lists the many dinners that every customer can order. It is up to the customers to decide for themselves what they will order.

There are no multiple things that can happen in any given instance in time and place. Any number of different things can happen at different times and different places.

Sorry, but still wrong. For example, what will you be doing tomorrow at your house at exactly 7pm? Do you know? If you know, then you can tell us what you know that you "will" be doing. But if you don't know, then you will only be able to tell us what you "could" be doing at that specific time and place. And there will be multiple things that you can be doing at that specific time and place.

The whole point of the word "can" is that it allows us to consider multiple things could happen at a specific time and place.

Your insistence that only one thing "can" happen implies that you already know what "will" happen. And if you already know what "will" happen, then what is your point in using "can" in place of "will"? You are clearly using "can" figuratively instead of literally when you remove its original meaning and replace it with the meaning of "will".

A restaurant may have a number of customers ordering a number of different items from the menu, which may have a number of options, yet in any given instance each and every order is the only possible action.

Obviously no single order is the only possible action for anyone. The ability to order each item on the menu is constant over time. If you order the cheesecake instead of the pizza, it does not make ordering pizza "impossible". It only makes the pizza "not ordered".

That's the terms of your definition.

It should be obvious to you by now that conflating "can" with "will" is NOT the terms of my definition of determinism and never has been. So, knock it off.

'Will happen' in determinism is equivalent to 'must happen as determined'

Okay, I'll go along with that metaphor. But 'must happen as determined' tells us nothing about what 'can happen'. Any number of things can happen, even though only one thing will happen.

What has been determined to happen is not open for choice or alternative actions.

If it has been determined that choosing will happen, then we will have no alternative but to choose. And, because we see choosing happening every day, we must logically conclude that choosing has undeniably been determined to happen. Figurative thinking will not give you a better understanding of the truth, because every figurative statement is literally false. So, look around you and observe what is actually happening in physical reality.

There are no choices because every step of the process of event and response has no alternatives.

If it has been determined that choosing will happen in the restaurant then the alternatives will be there on the menu for everyone to see. And it will be inevitable that each customer will see the items on the menu as true alternatives. This is a matter of logical necessity as well as causal necessity. There is no alternative to seeing the menu items as true alternatives!

Every event and every response must go precisely as determined.

And so they will. This will include the event of seeing the menu items as true alternatives and the event of choosing from those true alternatives what they will order for dinner. Why? Because that is how things were precisely determined to go!

There is no choice in how the system evolves, progresses or develops.

And if the system evolves, progresses, and develops through a choice that we will make, then we will have no choice but to make that choice (and you will have no choice but to acknowledge this fact).

The problem lies in trying to reconcile two concepts that are inherently incompatible.

For the incompatibilist, this is difficult. But for the compatibilist, there is no problem in reconciling deterministic causal necessity with choosing for ourselves what we will do. Or, as Señor Wences said, "For you it is difficult, for me it is easy".

 

[pood]

\

You have shown nothing.

Perhaps one thing; the knack of misrepresenting incompatibilism, which includes whatever I happen to say, quote or cite, even while brushing aside or rationalizing inner necessity as the ultimate restriction on choice and the notion of free will.

''An action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents.''

''The compatibilist might say because those are influences that are “outside” of the person, but this misses the entire point brought up by the free will skeptic, which is that ALL environmental conditions that help lead to a person’s brain state at any given moment are “outside of the person”, and the genes a person has was provided rather than decided.''

The patience is mine.

I see you still can’t tell us who or what made that building.

No surprise. Because your hard determinism has no answer for this simple question.

I have addressed your example several times. You disappear for a while, then come back and pretend it didn't happen. Now you should go back and read what I said and instead of pretending that nothing happened, just respond to what I said. That would be the reasonable thing to do.

Even now you ignored what I quoted, addressing nothing, just more sniping.

But you didn’t address it. If you did, point me to it. Or just say it here:

Who, or what, designed and built the building, and how did that happen, if Roark was unable to make choices?

Simple question.

I addressed it several times, Nor am I searching through numerous posts in several threads to indulge you. You ignored my reply several times. Just as you ignore anything that I quote and cite.

The explanation is not difficult. It's right there in the quotes I posted a couple of days ago, which instead of reading and considering the implications of what was said in relation to your example, you simply ignored it.

As I noted, you responded, but you did not answer. Again: Roark builds a great building, requiring that he make thousands of correct choices — none of which, according to you, are actual choices. They are illusory choices, I-choices. So clearly, according to you, Roark did not build the building.

Who or what did?

Just answer the question!

 

[bilby]

The inevitable evaluation process must necessarily lead to the inevitable conclusion.

That is the point. This is not Libertarian free will.

You cannot assert Libertarian free will when the process and the conclusion is inevitable.

Nothing is being freely willed in the Libertarian sense, yet Compatibilist free will is asserted by compatibilists.

I added some words to clarify what you appear to be saying, and having done so, I find that I don't disagree with you at all, and nor do you appear to disagree with anyone else in this thread.

We all agree that Libertarian free will is nonsense.

But Compatibilist free will is sufficient to establish basic desert responsibility - if the waiter brings you a basic dessert, it's your own fault for ordering it, as long as nobody put a gun to your head.

Your choices are inevitable; But they're nevertheless yours. Only through the mechanism of your self, can the universe resolve what the future inevitably must look like.

It's your choice. You are an essential and unavoidable component of bringing it to pass, and if you do so without extraordinary external influences, you did it of your own free will, and will quite reasonably be held responsible for doing it.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

As I noted, you responded, but you did not answer. Again: Roark builds a great building, requiring that he make thousands of correct choices — none of which, according to you, are actual choices. They are illusory choices, I-choices. So clearly, according to you, Roark did not build the building.

Who or what did?

Just answer the question!

(Perhaps the building is also an illusion. He should attempt to walk through one of the walls and see what happens ...)

 

[DBT]

Again. because DBT has a problem with last-word-ism spam.

Nah, it's just your inability to grasp the basics of determinism and its implications.

 

[DBT]

\

You have shown nothing.

Perhaps one thing; the knack of misrepresenting incompatibilism, which includes whatever I happen to say, quote or cite, even while brushing aside or rationalizing inner necessity as the ultimate restriction on choice and the notion of free will.

''An action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents.''

''The compatibilist might say because those are influences that are “outside” of the person, but this misses the entire point brought up by the free will skeptic, which is that ALL environmental conditions that help lead to a person’s brain state at any given moment are “outside of the person”, and the genes a person has was provided rather than decided.''

The patience is mine.

I see you still can’t tell us who or what made that building.

No surprise. Because your hard determinism has no answer for this simple question.

I have addressed your example several times. You disappear for a while, then come back and pretend it didn't happen. Now you should go back and read what I said and instead of pretending that nothing happened, just respond to what I said. That would be the reasonable thing to do.

Even now you ignored what I quoted, addressing nothing, just more sniping.

But you didn’t address it. If you did, point me to it. Or just say it here:

Who, or what, designed and built the building, and how did that happen, if Roark was unable to make choices?

Simple question.

I addressed it several times, Nor am I searching through numerous posts in several threads to indulge you. You ignored my reply several times. Just as you ignore anything that I quote and cite.

The explanation is not difficult. It's right there in the quotes I posted a couple of days ago, which instead of reading and considering the implications of what was said in relation to your example, you simply ignored it.

As I noted, you responded, but you did not answer. Again: Roark builds a great building, requiring that he make thousands of correct choices — none of which, according to you, are actual choices. They are illusory choices, I-choices. So clearly, according to you, Roark did not build the building.

Who or what did?

Just answer the question!

What part of ''nobody is questioning our ability to plan, design and construct buildings or machinery?" It's an ability enabled by the architecture of a brain, not free will.

It doesn't happen in isolation. It is not willed. Everything we do is related to our environment and its conditions and events.

We think, plan and we act. How good we are at it is not willed or wished.

The answer to your Strawman example was always right in front of your eyes, you just don't appear make the necessary connection. Which is understandable, given your position.

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

Now keep in mind that ''it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did'' does not exclude the ability to think, plan and act.