compatibilism

[Flannel Jesus]

Ask someone why a murderer deserves to die. Ask 1,000 people in a scientifically valid poll. You’ll find that most people believe the following: The murderer had a choice. That means that despite their bad upbringing, despite their drugged out mom, despite whatever hardships, they had the concrete, tangible, and available option to not commit that murder.

This "option" people sometimes intuitively think is incompatible with determinism. I have what I think it's a pretty good case for why it's not. Why do you think, phyllo or iwannaplato?

[phyllo]

I think it's possible to restate it as "what ought we do with murderers?".

And then it becomes clear that the question has nothing to do with free-will, determinism or compatibilism.

[Flannel Jesus]

I think it's possible to restate it as "what ought we do with murderers?".

And then it becomes clear that the question has nothing to do with free-will, determinism or compatibilism.

That makes plenty sense to me

[iambiguous]

Nature responds:



To all of us of course.

[Flannel Jesus]

"my name is lorax and I speak for the trees"

"My name is iambiguous and I speak for nature"

[Iwannaplato]

Ask someone why a murderer deserves to die. Ask 1,000 people in a scientifically valid poll. You’ll find that most people believe the following: The murderer had a choice. That means that despite their bad upbringing, despite their drugged out mom, despite whatever hardships, they had the concrete, tangible, and available option to not commit that murder.

This "option" people sometimes intuitively think is incompatible with determinism. I have what I think it's a pretty good case for why it's not. Why do you think, phyllo or iwannaplato?

My first response is: people say all sorts of things. I think it comes down to: that guy murdered. Other people would have been compelled by their natures to avoid killing. So, we gotta do something with the guy who is compelled to (or chooses to) murder. We're not going to smash the park bench where he murdered someone. Putting his drugged out mom in jail now doesn't make it safe for other people, and even if we did decide to incarcerate her, well, we still need to figure out what to do with a guy who chooses (or is compelled) to murder.

We can stop calling that 'holding him responsible' and feel proud that we avoided contradiction determinism or the potential for determinism, but
as a certain person would say,
this isn't going to make a lot of difference for the murderer we put in prison. Oh, thanks for not thinking I am morally responsible, but how about letting me out of the cell?

[Iwannaplato]

I think it's possible to restate it as "what ought we do with murderers?".

And then it becomes clear that the question has nothing to do with free-will, determinism or compatibilism.

ah, ok, this is a more concise version, more or less, of what I was saying. Nice.

[Age]

I think it's possible to restate it as "what ought we do with murderers?".

And then it becomes clear that the question has nothing to do with free-will, determinism or compatibilism.

YES, 'what ought you do with "soldiers/murderers"?'

That question, OBVIOUSLY, has absolutely NOTHING AT ALL to do with 'free-will', 'determinism', nor 'compatibilism', correct?

[Age]

Phyllo and iwannaplato, what does nature sound like when she speaks to you?

If I am dressed properly, my favorite way nature sounds is rain on deciduous leaves when I am far enough into the forest so that no human-made sounds reach me.

Even if, somehow, there is free will, I think this is a genetic response on my part. And even if I could change my response, I wouldn't.

What do you MEAN by, 'Even if, somehow, there is free will'?

Do you KNOW, FOR SURE, that there is NO 'free will'? Or, do you just BELIEVE that there is NO 'free will'?

And, BECAUSE 'you' will NOT answer 'this question', and thus have ABSOLUTELY NO ABILITY to CHOOSE here now, 'you', "iwannaplato", were PRE-DESTINED to have the INABILITY to CLARIFY "yourself", and to BE UNDERSTOOD.

Thus, WHY what 'you' SAY and CLAIM here makes NO SENSE AT ALL.

[Age]

Daniel Dennett is Wrong About Free Will
by Daniel Miessler

Ask someone why a murderer deserves to die. Ask 1,000 people in a scientifically valid poll. You’ll find that most people believe the following: The murderer had a choice. That means that despite their bad upbringing, despite their drugged out mom, despite whatever hardships, they had the concrete, tangible, and available option to not commit that murder.

So they are 100% guilty. Period.

The part where things that are already tricky get trickier still. We don't know -- can't know? -- if the murderers' brains compel them to murder "beyond their control". That depends on whether our own brains wholly compel us to think about determinism only as we must.

But if -- click -- we do have free will, what about the part where it is clearly the case that, existentially, some of us will live lives making it far more likely that at least in some respects we will be less able to control ourselves in regard to harming others.

LOL ALL of 'you', adult human beings, HARM "others", thus, ULTIMATELY, "your OWN selves". BUT, what can be CLEARLY SEEN here is EXACTLY HOW the human brain can REALLY BE the MOST STUPID of 'things' and TRICK 'itself' into "justifying" what can NOT, and FOOL 'itself' into BELIEVING 'things' are true, which are OBVIOUSLY NOT.

Instead, the legal system often just sweeps that part under the rug. Think Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

That’s the resolution that most people have in this country when it comes to considering free will. Not everyone, but most. Go ahead. Try the poll. I’m happy to be proven wrong.

How about all of us here? Can we finally agree on the precise philosophical definition/meaning of free will so that there will be no more confusion regarding what we are talking about when confronting thinks like Mary aborting Jane.

LOL The VERY REASON WHY 'you', adult human beings, are STILL SO LOST and CONFUSED and STILL 'DEBATING' this ALREADY SOLVED ISSUE IS BECAUSE DIFFERENT 'definitions' for the words 'free will', 'determinism', and 'compatibilism', are being USED.

And, what WILL BECOME CRYSTAL CLEAR is that the ones that think or BELIEVE that one or two of those words do NOT exist IS BECAUSE 'they' have been GIVEN 'definitions' that do NOT make sense or could NOT possibly exist.

HOW the human brain WORKS, REALLY IS Truly SIMPLE, and VERY EASY to FULLY UNDERSTAND.

By all means, someone create a poll comprised of all the different ways in which to understand free will.

We'll just assume that in creating it, you had free will.

BUT WHY ASSUME ABSOLUTELY ANY 'thing' here?

[Age]

'Having the ability to choose', could be explained/expressed with and by the words 'free will'.

'Things existing, EXACTLY the way they are, because of the past, or just cause and effect', could be explained/expressed with and by the word 'determinism'.

And,

'BOTH 'free will' AND 'determinism' CO-EXISTING, TOGETHER, could be explained/expressed with and by the word 'compatibilism'.

[iambiguous]

Daniel Dennett is Wrong About Free Will
by Daniel Miessler

Ask someone why a murderer deserves to die. Ask 1,000 people in a scientifically valid poll. You’ll find that most people believe the following: The murderer had a choice. That means that despite their bad upbringing, despite their drugged out mom, despite whatever hardships, they had the concrete, tangible, and available option to not commit that murder.

So they are 100% guilty. Period.

The part where things that are already tricky get trickier still. We don't know -- can't know? -- if the murderers' brains compel them to murder "beyond their control". That depends on whether our own brains wholly compel us to think about determinism only as we must.

But if -- click -- we do have free will, what about the part where it is clearly the case that, existentially, some of us will live lives making it far more likely that at least in some respects we will be less able to control ourselves in regard to harming others.

LOL ALL of 'you', adult human beings, HARM "others", thus, ULTIMATELY, "your OWN selves". BUT, what can be CLEARLY SEEN here is EXACTLY HOW the human brain can REALLY BE the MOST STUPID of 'things' and TRICK 'itself' into "justifying" what can NOT, and FOOL 'itself' into BELIEVING 'things' are true, which are OBVIOUSLY NOT.

Instead, the legal system often just sweeps that part under the rug. Think Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

That’s the resolution that most people have in this country when it comes to considering free will. Not everyone, but most. Go ahead. Try the poll. I’m happy to be proven wrong.

How about all of us here? Can we finally agree on the precise philosophical definition/meaning of free will so that there will be no more confusion regarding what we are talking about when confronting thinks like Mary aborting Jane.

LOL The VERY REASON WHY 'you', adult human beings, are STILL SO LOST and CONFUSED and STILL 'DEBATING' this ALREADY SOLVED ISSUE IS BECAUSE DIFFERENT 'definitions' for the words 'free will', 'determinism', and 'compatibilism', are being USED.

And, what WILL BECOME CRYSTAL CLEAR is that the ones that think or BELIEVE that one or two of those words do NOT exist IS BECAUSE 'they' have been GIVEN 'definitions' that do NOT make sense or could NOT possibly exist.

HOW the human brain WORKS, REALLY IS Truly SIMPLE, and VERY EASY to FULLY UNDERSTAND.

By all means, someone create a poll comprised of all the different ways in which to understand free will.

We'll just assume that in creating it, you had free will.

BUT WHY ASSUME ABSOLUTELY ANY 'thing' here?

No, seriously.

[Age]

Daniel Dennett is Wrong About Free Will
by Daniel Miessler



The part where things that are already tricky get trickier still. We don't know -- can't know? -- if the murderers' brains compel them to murder "beyond their control". That depends on whether our own brains wholly compel us to think about determinism only as we must.

But if -- click -- we do have free will, what about the part where it is clearly the case that, existentially, some of us will live lives making it far more likely that at least in some respects we will be less able to control ourselves in regard to harming others.

LOL ALL of 'you', adult human beings, HARM "others", thus, ULTIMATELY, "your OWN selves". BUT, what can be CLEARLY SEEN here is EXACTLY HOW the human brain can REALLY BE the MOST STUPID of 'things' and TRICK 'itself' into "justifying" what can NOT, and FOOL 'itself' into BELIEVING 'things' are true, which are OBVIOUSLY NOT.

Instead, the legal system often just sweeps that part under the rug. Think Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”



How about all of us here? Can we finally agree on the precise philosophical definition/meaning of free will so that there will be no more confusion regarding what we are talking about when confronting thinks like Mary aborting Jane.

LOL The VERY REASON WHY 'you', adult human beings, are STILL SO LOST and CONFUSED and STILL 'DEBATING' this ALREADY SOLVED ISSUE IS BECAUSE DIFFERENT 'definitions' for the words 'free will', 'determinism', and 'compatibilism', are being USED.

And, what WILL BECOME CRYSTAL CLEAR is that the ones that think or BELIEVE that one or two of those words do NOT exist IS BECAUSE 'they' have been GIVEN 'definitions' that do NOT make sense or could NOT possibly exist.

HOW the human brain WORKS, REALLY IS Truly SIMPLE, and VERY EASY to FULLY UNDERSTAND.

By all means, someone create a poll comprised of all the different ways in which to understand free will.

We'll just assume that in creating it, you had free will.

BUT WHY ASSUME ABSOLUTELY ANY 'thing' here?

No, seriously.

Yes. I have PROVED IRREFUTABLY, ONCE AGAIN, WHY these adult human beings WERE SO LOST and CONFUSED. The way this one responds PROVES this True.

This one can NOT even INFORM ANY one WHY 'it' continues to ASSUME 'things'. That is how LOST and CONFUSED 'they' REALLY WERE, back then.

As for 'free will' EXISTING, I have AGAIN PROVED, IRREFUTABLY, True here. The way this one responds PROVES this. This one here is just CHOOSING to be SO STUPID. Either that or 'it' has absolutely NO CHOICE AT ALL in providing such STUPID responses.

[iambiguous]

Freedom: An Impossible Reality by Raymond Tallis
This issue we consider ultimate human realities as Raymond Tallis has the intention of proving free will.
Book Review
Jonathan Head

Intentional Agency

The overall argument of the book centers on the notion of ‘intentionality’. This is a philosophical jargon term that doesn’t mean what people normally mean by ‘intention’. We can understand intentionality as the ‘aboutness’ of a mental state: so, for example, my desire to have a cat as a pet shows intentionality in being about a cat, or my perception of the cup on the table is about that particular physical object. Intentionality requires a subject or agent, as these thoughts about something are for someone.

But what does this really resolve? How do we connect the dots between intentionality as a "philosophical jargon term" and how "for all practical purposes" we should understand our own existential, day-to-day intentions?

And then the part where it is our own material brain itself that is used to define the meaning of "agency". After all, what is it "about" the human brain as matter that evolved biologically from brainless/lifeless matter here on planet Earth that enabled it to invent a word like "agency"?

Really, how is it all that different from a "soul"? Can philosophers or scientists or theologians pinpoint where in the brain the soul or the agent can be found?

After all, an object itself can represent something else without the ‘aboutness’ of intentionality, such as the way a painting can on its own represent a landscape. But it only becomes about a landscape when it’s observed.

But then this part:

What percentage of DNA do humans share with other animals:
Chimps: 98.8
Gorillas: 98.4
Pig: 98
Orangutan: 96.9
Cat: 90
Mouse: 85
Dog: 84

They observe a landscape just as we do. But how we observe it is [or can be] very, very different. And certainly in part because what we observe includes the "is/ought" world. There's the way a landscape [or a set of circumstances] appears to us, and all of our different reactions regarding whether, instead, it should appear some other way.

The "soul" or the "agent" then. And, in particular, from my frame of mind -- click -- in a No God world.

Tallis argues that intentionality allows for genuine agency. Intentionality allows us to engage in forms of action that are best understood as “a kind of interruption in the otherwise uninterrupted flow of events in the material world”. Being able to think about other things (that is, have intentionality) opens up a reflective space or “virtual or non-spatial outside” for us which separates us and our thoughts in some way from the constraining laws of nature and allows us to have genuine alternatives for action.

In "some way" we have acquired the capacity to opt for alternative behaviors.

But, really, beyond him taking the same leap we all do here -- "I just know deep down inside that this is true" -- how exactly does he go about demonstrating this?

There's a big part of me that believes the same. But then I keep coming back around to the human brain being just more matter and matter interacting with other matter in accordance with the laws of matter...physics, chemistry, mathematics.

Or:

"There are four fundamental forces at work in the universe: the strong force, the weak force, the electromagnetic force, and the gravitational force."

So, where does the human brain fit in here?

Or is biological matter the key to it. Living matter. With or without a God, the God?

Instead, it's straight back up into the realm of philosophical arguments -- philosophical arguments -- here:

Intentionality therefore demonstrates the potential for an agency that is not simply plugged into a physical causal framework that slavishly follows the laws of nature.

And, here, of course, all one need do is to believe it.



With or without a "condition".

[iambiguous]

The Dogmatic Determinism of Daniel Dennett
Eyal Mozes
BOOK REVIEW: Daniel C. Dennett, Freedom Evolves.
at The Atlas Society

DENNETT'S REDEFINITION OF FREE WILL

Dennett defends a particular form of determinism known as compatibilism. This is the view that the concept of free will should be redefined so that it no longer involves a free choice among alternatives and can thus be made compatible with the mechanist/reductionist model of the universe.

Back again to the part where Dennett reconciles his own understanding of determinism with a definition he gives to any word at all. How is he responsible for defining his own concept of free will such that it is different from how a Libertarian and an Objectivist would define it? From their frame of mind, they do "somehow" possess free will and, that being the case, they are able to sit back and "think through" what free will means given that they can opt to come up with different definitions but are able of their own volition to define it in a manner they construe to be the most rational definition.

As for "redefin[ing] it so that it no longer involves a free choice among alternatives and can thus be made compatible with the mechanist/reductionist model of the universe", is that what he is doing?

This makes no sense to me. If the human brain tasked with defining words does so given that the brain itself is an essential component of a mechanistic/reductionist material universe where -- how -- does the compatibilism part fit into it such that he can be said to bear responsibility for his own definition?

I clearly keep missing something here regarding this line of thinking.

Dennett makes the reality of free will depend on our need for morality rather than the other way around.

In fact, this is, in part, my own reaction. In other words, those determinists who are not willing to go all the way out to the very end of the limb here when it comes to responsibility. In particular, moral responsibility. "Somehow" we've got to be involved when it comes to things like crime and punishment. We can't live in a world where genocide and child abuse and rape and murder are inherently embedded in "the only possible reality".

The Libertarians/Objectivists merely embrace all the more the assumption that we simply must have free will here. They are no more able to demonstrate it empirically/scientifically than Dennett but like the rest of us they imagine how ghastly human reality might be construed if all of the terrible things that happen to us really were "beyond our control".

Thus...

For Dennett, the significance of free will is that it is the basis of morality and moral responsibility, of engaging in moral judgment and holding people responsible for their actions.

Exactly. No free will, and all of that becomes human brains creating the "psychological illusion" of morality and moral responsibility.

Then back to the part that ever escapes me...

His thesis is that while free will in the ordinary sense is an illusion, these consequences of free will are real and compatible with his deterministic model of the universe, so free will should be redefined to refer to these consequences.

Again, as though in redefining it that too is not just another manifestation of the illusion such that Dennett's brain "somehow" compelled him to make determinism compatible with moral responsibility.

Dennett suggests that calling an action "freely chosen" should not mean that the person had some other possible alternative action (which Dennett claims is never true), but rather should mean that we are justified in holding the person morally responsible for that action: "In other words, the fact that free will is worth wanting can be used to anchor our conception of free will in a way metaphysical myths fail to do".

Okay -- click -- this might make sense to some but not to me. If something is worth wanting it doesn't make our wanting it any more a manifestation of free will. At least not as the Libertarians/Objectivists construe it.