Demystifying Determinism

[Marvin Edwards]

The process doesn't begin with 'what we choose.'

A deliberate act begins with us choosing what we will do, and ends with us acting upon that choice.

What we think and 'choose' is determined by antecedents, which in turn determines what happens next and so on.

Of course. All events are reliably caused by prior events, stretching back in time as far as we can imagine. But the farther back we go, the less meaningful and relevant, and the more incidental, each prior cause becomes.

The most meaningful and relevant prior cause of a deliberate act is usually the act of deliberation that precedes it.

No deviation. No alternatives.

Yet you keep trying to deviate the chain of causation around us, as if we weren't even here.

And you ignore the fact that we have no alternative but to consider multiple alternatives every time we must choose. Instead you pretend that choosing isn't happening when clearly it is.

All actions are fixed by the deterministic interaction of the systems constituent parts...

And some of these parts are intelligent living organisms that execute control of events by deliberately choosing what they will cause to happen and what they will not cause to happen.

Nobody is suggesting that the universe has the capacity to think.....yet there are constituent parts of the universe. lifeforms, that have evolved to think, feel and act.

Intelligent lifeforms have evolved to think, feel, and choose for themselves what they will do. Don't forget the choosing. They also can perform addition and subtraction. Choosing is another logical function that is performed by the human brain. Neuroscience refers to "decision-making".

The physical universe is composed of information, chemistry, physics, relativity, quantum, etc...where, at least on one planet there has evolved an information processor capable of acquiring and processing information, representing it in conscious form and responding rationally in order to benefit the survival of the organism, the brain.

A bit of an "Idealistic" turn there. Technically speaking, the physical universe is not actually composed of information, but it does contain brains. It is not composed of chemistry, but it does contain chemicals. It is not composed of physics, but it does contain physical objects (quarks, atoms, ... people, ... planets, stars, etc.). Information, chemistry, physics, etc. are all products of the brain's understanding of these physical things.

Someone once said that "information is useful knowledge". It is data in a form that is usable for some purpose.

Which has nothing to do with free will.

Well, let's see. We know that we actually exist as physical objects in the universe. And we know that our brains actually make decisions. And we know that these decision can causally determine our actions. And we know that our actions will causally determine subsequent events.

So, where is free will? Free will is when our choosing is free of coercion and undue influence. And that is the case most of the time. However, sometimes someone else's choices are imposed upon us against our will, such as by a guy with a gun telling us to hand over our money or be shot dead, in which case our will is not free, but is subjugated to his will.

There are a number of other cases where the choice is not under our control. For example, a significant mental illness, or someone having authority over us (parent/child, doctor/patient, commander/soldier, etc.), or manipulation by deception or hypnosis, and similar influences that can effectively remove our control of our choices.

Nothing was freely willed.

That's just silly. All kinds of actions are freely chosen by us every day. Just look around and watch people deciding what they will wear to work, or what they will fix for lunch, or what college to attend, or which car to buy, etc. etc. etc.

Not evolution. Not brain capacity and ability. Not neural architecture, not how we perceive the world, not how we think or act.

The list of things we did not choose, like how we got here by evolution, or like how our brains work, or other such prior causes, does not in any way reduce the millions of things that we actually do choose. And our choices routinely control what we will be thinking about and what we will actually be doing.

Choosing for ourselves what we will do is something that our brains have evolved over thousands of year to routinely do for us. It was never necessary for us to choose what evolution would do in order to choose what we will have for dinner.

 

[Jarhyn]

They also can perform addition and subtraction. Choosing is another logical function that is performed by the human brain. Neuroscience refers to "decision-making".

Technically, addition and subtraction are choice functions: choose one specific object from field C on the basis of positions in fields A and B.

 

[DBT]

Here are some synonyms for you:

information processor

"Choice engine"

Sorry: no alternative/no choice.

Inner necessity is not a matter of choice. Whatever happens must happen.

Choice; an act of choosing between two or more possibilities.

Determinism; all events within a deterministic system develop or evolve as they must without deviation, where there are no possible alternate actions. Consequently, determinism does not permit two or more realizable options to choose from.

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

There goes your case, done, finished.

 

[DBT]

The process doesn't begin with 'what we choose.'

A deliberate act begins with us choosing what we will do, and ends with us acting upon that choice.

A 'deliberate' act does not happen in isolation, uncaused, freely chosen or freely willed. Given determinism, every thought and every action has antecedents. A host of elements that bring you to that point in time and place to think and act as you must.

That is inner necessity. That is determinism just as you define it.

The rest is just window dressing.

Necessitation;
''Determinism is an example: it alleges that all the seeming irregularities and spontaneities in the world are haunted by an omnipresent system of strict necessitation.'' - J. W. N. Watkins, "Between Analytic and Empirical," Philosophy, vol. 32, no. 121, p. 114:

 

[Jarhyn]

Sorry: no alternative/no choice

You clearly are using words that are synonymous with choice, and just trying to pretend the words you use don't have the meanings they have.

Whatever happens must happen.

"Whatever happens in this portion of the universe that we can see is the only thing that can happen in any part of the universe; there is no universe behind the portion we can see and interact with".

Of course this statement is laughably assumptive. You might as well pose an invisible pink unicorn keeping you from doing the things you really want to!

Determinism; all events within a deterministic system develop or evolve as they must without deviation, where there are no possible alternate actions. Consequently, determinism does not permit two or more realizable options to choose from.

There you go. I eliminated the insertions that are dumb and unnecessary.

As we have all pointed out, you committed the modal fallacy yet again.

"Possible": IF there was a region of the universe arranged just so, THEN that region of the universe would evolve in THIS way.

It doesn't require any region of the universe to be arranged that way, it just describes what would happen IF it was.

Possibilities do not have to be "realized" to be "realizable". They can in fact be static artifacts that you look at, walk past, and leave there forever. In the moment it was true that IF the universe were arranged in some way (as to make you do that thing no matter the outcome of your choosing process, as if you were fated to), THEN the universe would evolve some known way from that point.

There goes your case. Done.

What happens to be matter described in reality has no way to limit that which happens in simulation except to determine what can or cannot be simulated.

Simulant deviation is more than enough to generate the artifacts as any system can emulate any other systems, including systems which approximate the system's furure faster than the system reifies its own process and future.

Really, it comes down to a race: can you use macrophysical simulations to outpace the reification of the future, approximate it, and make changes to the program of the simulation so that the future reifies differently from your approximate prediction?

The answer is YES! You can in fact simulate an approximation of the future faster than QM reifies that future, and then look at what happened, and make changes so the future is different from your approximation.

This is "making choices about the future".

 

[Marvin Edwards]

A 'deliberate' act does not happen in isolation, uncaused, freely chosen or freely willed.

Deliberation, according to the OED, is "The action of thinking carefully about something, esp. in order to reach a decision; careful consideration; an act or instance of this."

A deliberate act is caused by that which chooses to perform the act. Specifically, it is our own brain deciding whether we will do this thing or not.

"Freely chosen" and "freely willed" simply means that our deliberation was neither coerced nor unduly influenced.

The events during deliberation are neither uncaused nor lacking any antecedent events. We all expect our choices to be reliably caused by our own goals and our own reasoning, and we are all aware that these goals and reasons have prior causes recorded in our personal life history.

Given determinism, every thought and every action has antecedents. A host of elements that bring you to that point in time and place to think and act as you must.

And, given determinism, when it is our own goals and reasons that determine what we will choose, the act of deliberation will also be an example of free will, an "I will" that is reliably caused by who and what we are when free of coercion and undue influence.

That is inner necessity. That is determinism just as you define it.

And it should be determinism just as you define it as well. Sweet, short, and to the point.

But no. You insist that what "can" happen is limited to what "will" happen, which traps us in paradoxes. And you claim that we don't actually make choices. And that us making choices is somehow happening outside of a deterministic worldview.

The rest is just window dressing.

All that extraneous stuff is due to the hard determinist's false assumptions of implications that do not logically follow from the premise of a world of perfectly reliable causation.

Necessitation;
''Determinism is an example: it alleges that all the seeming irregularities and spontaneities in the world are haunted by an omnipresent system of strict necessitation.'' - J. W. N. Watkins, "Between Analytic and Empirical," Philosophy, vol. 32, no. 121, p. 114:

There is no point to all the spooky implications. The "haunting" disappears when we realize that determinism is not making us do anything that we aren't already choosing to do ourselves.

 

[DBT]

Sorry: no alternative/no choice

You clearly are using words that are synonymous with choice, and just trying to pretend the words you use don't have the meanings they have.

I am clearly pointing out that choice requires two or more realizable options. And that determinism, according your own definition, does not permit two or more realizable options, that the system must develop without randomness or deviation....hence no two or more options. Hence no choice and the no choice principle of determinism.

Consequently, the decision making process is one of entailment, not choice, and especially not free will.

Again: entailment is not a matter of choice.

 

[DBT]

A 'deliberate' act does not happen in isolation, uncaused, freely chosen or freely willed.

Deliberation, according to the OED, is "The action of thinking carefully about something, esp. in order to reach a decision; careful consideration; an act or instance of this."

Deliberation is a matter of information processing. The brain as an information processor represents some of that activity in conscious form as 'deliberation.' We as conscious entities experience it as thought.

Given determinism, the information processing activity of a brain is determined in each incremental state of the process leading to the conclusion, the inevitable decision and related action.

No deviation. No alternative actions. Not in conscious thought or at any point in deliberation process, be it conscious or unconscious activity, nor the action that necessarily follows.

A process of entailment, not free will.

Harsh? Probably, but that's determinism.

A deliberate act is caused by that which chooses to perform the act. Specifically, it is our own brain deciding whether we will do this thing or not.

The 'choice' is inevitable, as is the action that follows. It's not a matter of choosing to do it or not. If an action is determined, it must happen and there is no 'do this thing or not,' only do.

 

[Jarhyn]

I am clearly pointing out that choice requires two or more realizable options

And then trying to pretend that the word "realizable" only requires the  logical possibility, not reified possibility, the fact that it was possible "in approximal simulation".

What makes options "realizable" is merely "IF *A* universe were arranged in state A, then later that universe would be arranged in state B" is itself a true statement

Note the use of A, not THE in the *.

Doesn't have to be this one. It doesn't have to have started later than last Thursday. It can be an entirely imaginary, simulated universe. It can be the simulated approximal universe in someone's head, as long as the rules of macrophysics are being suitably enforced by whatever proxies are there.

What makes them realizable is similar to what makes a file executable.

I might ask you "without ever executing a file, how do you answer whether a file can be executed?"

It's not a paradox...

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Deliberation is a matter of information processing. The brain as an information processor represents some of that activity in conscious form as 'deliberation.' We as conscious entities experience it as thought.

So, now you see it.

Given determinism, the information processing activity of a brain is determined in each incremental state of the process leading to the conclusion, the inevitable decision and related action.

And now you double down on the assertion that you do see it.

No deviation. No alternative actions. Not in conscious thought or at any point in deliberation process, be it conscious or unconscious activity, nor the action that necessarily follows.

And now you triple down on the assertion that you not only see it but that it is also causally necessary.

A process of entailment, not free will.

And now you don't. Somehow you've made it disappear. It was right there in front of you. (1) The options being considered, (2) the action being chosen, and (3) the action being performed. All there. All necessarily happening. And now Poof! they are gone?

Harsh? Probably, but that's determinism.

Harsh? No. I don't think so. Free will is still (necessarily) just us (necessarily) deciding for ourselves what we (necessarily) will do. So, get comfortable with this insight, even if it is still new to you.

The 'choice' is inevitable, as is the action that follows.

Okay, so you're going to try that magic trick again? And this part is "Now you see it".

It's not a matter of choosing to do it or not.

And "Now you don't!". If a choice is inevitable then choosing is also inevitable.

If an action is determined, it must happen and there is no 'do this thing or not,' only do.

Because choosing actually does happen, and we all see it happening, it must logically be the case that it was always causally necessary that it would indeed happen, and that it would happen precisely as we saw it happening. You cannot claim that determinism makes events magically disappear. Determinism guarantees that every event that happens will necessarily happen exactly as it does happen, just so, without any deviation.

There will (necessarily) be issues that we must (necessarily) decide by (necessarily) considering the options in front of us, and (necessarily) choosing the one that we (necessarily) reason will turn out best for us.

Determinism doesn't change anything. It simply repeats the obvious.

 

[The AntiChris]

Deliberation is a matter of information processing. The brain as an information processor represents some of that activity in conscious form as 'deliberation.' We as conscious entities experience it as thought.

So, now you see it.

Given determinism, the information processing activity of a brain is determined in each incremental state of the process leading to the conclusion, the inevitable decision and related action.

And now you double down on the assertion that you do see it.

No deviation. No alternative actions. Not in conscious thought or at any point in deliberation process, be it conscious or unconscious activity, nor the action that necessarily follows.

And now you triple down on the assertion that you not only see it but that it is also causally necessary.

A process of entailment, not free will.

And now you don't. Somehow you've made it disappear. It was right there in front of you.

He hasn't made it disappear, he just refuses to call it 'free will'.

You and DBT don't disagree about the facts. you disagree about word usage. DBT is convinced that words/phrases such as 'free will' and 'choose', have intrinsic meaning regardless of how those words/phrases are used by the populace at large. For some reason that he is unwilling to share (I've tried on many, many occasions to address this without success), DBT is convinced that he knows what these words/phrases really mean.

My point is that until you realise that this is a semantic disagreement, you're doomed to argue interminably about facts on which you both violently agree.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Deliberation is a matter of information processing. The brain as an information processor represents some of that activity in conscious form as 'deliberation.' We as conscious entities experience it as thought.

So, now you see it.

Given determinism, the information processing activity of a brain is determined in each incremental state of the process leading to the conclusion, the inevitable decision and related action.

And now you double down on the assertion that you do see it.

No deviation. No alternative actions. Not in conscious thought or at any point in deliberation process, be it conscious or unconscious activity, nor the action that necessarily follows.

And now you triple down on the assertion that you not only see it but that it is also causally necessary.

A process of entailment, not free will.

And now you don't. Somehow you've made it disappear. It was right there in front of you.

He hasn't made it disappear, he just refuses to call it 'free will'.

You and DBT don't disagree about the facts. you disagree about word usage. DBT is convinced that words/phrases such as 'free will' and 'choose', have intrinsic meaning regardless of how those words/phrases are used by the populace at large. For some reason that he is unwilling to share (I've tried on many, many occasions to address this without success), DBT is convinced that he knows what these words/phrases really mean.

My point is that until you realise that this is a semantic disagreement, you're doomed to argue interminably about facts on which you both violently agree.

Of course it is a semantic disagreement. The problem is that the term "free will" has operational meaning, and to say it does not exist is morally irresponsible. He is actually attacking "freedom from causal necessity", not "free will". But by using "free will" and claiming it is not a real event, he screws things up.

 

[Jarhyn]

Deliberation is a matter of information processing. The brain as an information processor represents some of that activity in conscious form as 'deliberation.' We as conscious entities experience it as thought.

So, now you see it.

Given determinism, the information processing activity of a brain is determined in each incremental state of the process leading to the conclusion, the inevitable decision and related action.

And now you double down on the assertion that you do see it.

No deviation. No alternative actions. Not in conscious thought or at any point in deliberation process, be it conscious or unconscious activity, nor the action that necessarily follows.

And now you triple down on the assertion that you not only see it but that it is also causally necessary.

A process of entailment, not free will.

And now you don't. Somehow you've made it disappear. It was right there in front of you.

He hasn't made it disappear, he just refuses to call it 'free will'.

You and DBT don't disagree about the facts. you disagree about word usage. DBT is convinced that words/phrases such as 'free will' and 'choose', have intrinsic meaning regardless of how those words/phrases are used by the populace at large. For some reason that he is unwilling to share (I've tried on many, many occasions to address this without success), DBT is convinced that he knows what these words/phrases really mean.

My point is that until you realise that this is a semantic disagreement, you're doomed to argue interminably about facts on which you both violently agree.

Of course it is a semantic disagreement. The problem is that the term "free will" has operational meaning, and to say it does not exist is morally irresponsible. He is actually attacking "freedom from causal necessity", not "free will". But by using "free will" and claiming it is not a real event, he screws things up.

I agree. Of course, my expectation is that DBT is holding onto a "compartment" which protects their rational mind from the weight of a particular execution of a freely held will that was free to completion.

By pretending that responsibility is not real, folks with such compartments avoid having to process the existential crisis -- and so the work of "acceptance" -- by sacrificing the proven utility of acknowledging free will and the associated automatic oversight that this enables.

I would never call "free will" an event, without using more words than that, however. The execution of a will unto it's freedom is an event, but a "will" is an object, and it's freedom is a property of that object. As such freedom is a "quality" of an object, not an event... Though the consummation of it's freedom is, in fact, an event.

 

[The AntiChris]

Of course it is a semantic disagreement.

Ok.

I'm afraid I just don't see how you're addressing this aspect of your dispute.

The problem is that the term "free will" has operational meaning, and to say it does not exist is morally irresponsible. He is actually attacking "freedom from causal necessity", not "free will". But by using "free will" and claiming it is not a real event, he screws things up.

I don't think DBT is being "morally irresponsible", he's simply locked into an ideological mindset in which the use of certain words imply, for him, a denial of determinism. I guarantee DBT assesses other moral agents' free will and assigns moral responsibility in very much the same way we all do - he just feels ideologically compelled to eschew certain words and phrases which, for him, suggest a less than wholehearted belief in determinism.

 

[Jarhyn]

Of course it is a semantic disagreement.

Ok.

I'm afraid I just don't see how you're addressing this aspect of your dispute.

The problem is that the term "free will" has operational meaning, and to say it does not exist is morally irresponsible. He is actually attacking "freedom from causal necessity", not "free will". But by using "free will" and claiming it is not a real event, he screws things up.

I don't think DBT is being "morally irresponsible", he's simply locked into an ideological mindset in which the use of certain words imply, for him, a denial of determinism. I guarantee DBT assesses other moral agents' free will and assigns moral responsibility in very much the same way we all do - he just feels ideologically compelled to eschew certain words and phrases which, for him, suggest a less than wholehearted belief in determinism.

I'm not so sure, given their attacks on justice and responsibility in general.

It seems motivated towards eschewing responsibility from their psyche.

 

[The AntiChris]

Of course it is a semantic disagreement.

Ok.

I'm afraid I just don't see how you're addressing this aspect of your dispute.

The problem is that the term "free will" has operational meaning, and to say it does not exist is morally irresponsible. He is actually attacking "freedom from causal necessity", not "free will". But by using "free will" and claiming it is not a real event, he screws things up.

I don't think DBT is being "morally irresponsible", he's simply locked into an ideological mindset in which the use of certain words imply, for him, a denial of determinism. I guarantee DBT assesses other moral agents' free will and assigns moral responsibility in very much the same way we all do - he just feels ideologically compelled to eschew certain words and phrases which, for him, suggest a less than wholehearted belief in determinism.

I'm not so sure, given their attacks on justice and responsibility in general.

It seems motivated towards eschewing responsibility from their psyche.

I'm sure.

DBT regularly demonstrates moral outrage when he believes he's not been treated fairly by his interlocutors. These aren't the actions of someone who's "eschewing responsibility".

 

[Jarhyn]

Of course it is a semantic disagreement.

Ok.

I'm afraid I just don't see how you're addressing this aspect of your dispute.

The problem is that the term "free will" has operational meaning, and to say it does not exist is morally irresponsible. He is actually attacking "freedom from causal necessity", not "free will". But by using "free will" and claiming it is not a real event, he screws things up.

I don't think DBT is being "morally irresponsible", he's simply locked into an ideological mindset in which the use of certain words imply, for him, a denial of determinism. I guarantee DBT assesses other moral agents' free will and assigns moral responsibility in very much the same way we all do - he just feels ideologically compelled to eschew certain words and phrases which, for him, suggest a less than wholehearted belief in determinism.

I'm not so sure, given their attacks on justice and responsibility in general.

It seems motivated towards eschewing responsibility from their psyche.

I'm sure.

DBT regularly demonstrates moral outrage when he believes he's not been treated fairly by his interlocutors. These aren't the actions of someone who's "eschewing responsibility".

For himself, I mean. We have a whole raft of folks on this forum that are absolutely against "fascism", but only when it means they don't get a chance at being fascists.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Deliberation is a matter of information processing. The brain as an information processor represents some of that activity in conscious form as 'deliberation.' We as conscious entities experience it as thought.

So, now you see it.

Given determinism, the information processing activity of a brain is determined in each incremental state of the process leading to the conclusion, the inevitable decision and related action.

And now you double down on the assertion that you do see it.

No deviation. No alternative actions. Not in conscious thought or at any point in deliberation process, be it conscious or unconscious activity, nor the action that necessarily follows.

And now you triple down on the assertion that you not only see it but that it is also causally necessary.

A process of entailment, not free will.

And now you don't. Somehow you've made it disappear. It was right there in front of you.

He hasn't made it disappear, he just refuses to call it 'free will'.

You and DBT don't disagree about the facts. you disagree about word usage. DBT is convinced that words/phrases such as 'free will' and 'choose', have intrinsic meaning regardless of how those words/phrases are used by the populace at large. For some reason that he is unwilling to share (I've tried on many, many occasions to address this without success), DBT is convinced that he knows what these words/phrases really mean.

My point is that until you realise that this is a semantic disagreement, you're doomed to argue interminably about facts on which you both violently agree.

Of course it is a semantic disagreement. The problem is that the term "free will" has operational meaning, and to say it does not exist is morally irresponsible. He is actually attacking "freedom from causal necessity", not "free will". But by using "free will" and claiming it is not a real event, he screws things up.

I agree. Of course, my expectation is that DBT is holding onto a "compartment" which protects their rational mind from the weight of a particular execution of a freely held will that was free to completion.

By pretending that responsibility is not real, folks with such compartments avoid having to process the existential crisis -- and so the work of "acceptance" -- by sacrificing the proven utility of acknowledging free will and the associated automatic oversight that this enables.

I would never call "free will" an event, without using more words than that, however. The execution of a will unto it's freedom is an event, but a "will" is an object, and it's freedom is a property of that object. As such freedom is a "quality" of an object, not an event... Though the consummation of it's freedom is, in fact, an event.

I wouldn't describe it as DBT's compartment. He's simply describing the traditional hard determinist position. So, he has no reason to abandon it, because he feels he is very well backed up. He's just "reading from the script".

Free will is an event in which a person chooses for themselves what they will do while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.
Coercion is an event in which a person forced to do what someone else chooses due to a threat of harm.
Undue influence is an event in which a person's ability to control their choice is significantly impaired or absent (coercion is also a form of undue influence).

Whenever any of these events happen, we assume it was causally necessary from any prior point in time, which means only that it happened in the natural course of events. Given the prior events, nothing else would have happened (even if many other things could have happened).

A "will" is a person's intention to do something specific. Accomplishing the selected task is the goal of that intent. Intent motivates and directs our thoughts and actions until the task is completed ("consummated") or abandoned.

Freedom is the ability (which includes the motivation) to accomplish a task.

That's the way I see the words working.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Of course it is a semantic disagreement.

Ok.

I'm afraid I just don't see how you're addressing this aspect of your dispute.

The problem is that the term "free will" has operational meaning, and to say it does not exist is morally irresponsible. He is actually attacking "freedom from causal necessity", not "free will". But by using "free will" and claiming it is not a real event, he screws things up.

I don't think DBT is being "morally irresponsible", he's simply locked into an ideological mindset in which the use of certain words imply, for him, a denial of determinism. I guarantee DBT assesses other moral agents' free will and assigns moral responsibility in very much the same way we all do - he just feels ideologically compelled to eschew certain words and phrases which, for him, suggest a less than wholehearted belief in determinism.

Free will and moral/legal responsibility go hand in hand. The "principle of alternate possibilities" (PAP) asserts that if it was our only choice, then we cannot be held responsible. When DBT argues for the "no choice principle" he is referring to the PAP. If determinism leaves us with no choice, then no one is ever responsible for their behavior.

But in physical reality, determinism includes the choosing event, such that there is always a choice between alternate possibilities that will inevitably happen by causal necessity.

And it is the person's choosing which requires correction whenever an offender chooses to criminally harm someone else for their own benefit. Correcting his future choosing will require penalty and rehabilitation (the penalty motivates participation in rehab programs).

If coercion caused the person's criminal behavior, then all that is required to correct the behavior is to remove the threat.
If insanity caused the person's criminal behavior, then correction will require medical and/or psychiatric treatment in a secure facility.

To put it simply, free will, coercion, and insanity are three different causal mechanisms, and if we wish to correct the behavior, then we need to know what caused it, so that we can use correctional methods that are known to work with that causal mechanism.

 

[The AntiChris]

It seems I'm not expressing myself clearly.

Free will and moral/legal responsibility go hand in hand. The "principle of alternate possibilities" (PAP) asserts that if it was our only choice, then we cannot be held responsible.

This isn't necessary. You're preaching to the choir.

When DBT argues for the "no choice principle" he is referring to the PAP. If determinism leaves us with no choice, then no one is ever responsible for their behavior.

I know this is what DBT argues but it is not what he practices.

Every time DBT expresses irritation/outrage because he feels someone is misrepresenting him or they simply refuse to "get" what he's saying, he's holding them responsible. He just refuses to accept that's what he's doing because in his ideological mindset 'responsibility' cannot exist in a deterministic universe.

This is what I mean when I say you and DBT don't disagree about the facts - you disagree about the words used to describe those facts.