compatibilism

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Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Belinda »

iambiguous wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 5:22 pm The Paradox of Free Will
Dennis Waite at the Yoga International website
Most people believe that they are the body and mind and those are affected by our actions. A diabetic, eating sweets without careful consideration, may end up in a coma. Someone who argues with everybody and openly insults others is likely, eventually, to receive a punch in the nose. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says that, as we act, so we become—a person doing good becomes good, one doing evil becomes evil. This is all from the empirical, or vyavaharika, viewpoint.
Yes, but, again, the issue here is not whether these things are reasonable to note, but whether we were able to note something other than what we did note because we thought about them some more and changed our minds of our own volition. It's not that someone argues with others precipitating consequences but whether both the decision to argue and the consequences are or are not together as one in the only possible reality given the only possible world.

That's what can't be pinned down here. Or if it has been pinned down definitively, link us to the argument and the evidence backing it up such that you can demonstrate that in so doing you did so while in possession of free will.

That folks from the West might think about all of this differently from folks in the East doesn't make that go away.

Or, rather, it doesn't for me.
Traditional Advaita explains this using the concept of samskara. Whenever someone performs an action with the desire for a specific result (whether for oneself or another), a samskara is created for that person. These accumulate and determine the situations we will be presented with in the future. Our samskaras will influence the scope of our future actions and also the tendencies that we have to act in a particular way (vasana). Any samskara that is not exhausted in this life will carry forward to determine the nature of our birth in the next.
Same thing. How does one go about addressing this given Schopenhauer's conjecture that while you can do what you desire, you cannot desire what you desire. Ever and always back to the profound mystery embedded in the reality of mindful matter emanating from brain matter either wholly in sync with the laws of matter or not. This going all the way back to what can only be the profoundest mystery of all: existence itself.

Why this existence and not no existence at all? Why this existence and not another? Then those who interject at this point and insist it all goes back to God.

I also suggest that given some measure of free will, how is the samskara -- "mental impressions, recollections, or psychological imprints" -- not just another manifestation of dasein.

Why does someone perform this action given this desire when others in the same situation perform different actions derived from different desires?
Inanimate things can't choose at all so they are what they are ever since they began to exist. Even granite rocks can be eroded an split asunder and that too is what the rock is ; it's history defines its future.

We humans are very much living things as we even have insight into our own aliveness. This insight gives us a lot of choices whereas the rock has no choices at all. Our futures, unlike the futures of rocks, are not determined by our histories . The extra choices we have are not determined by so-called "Free Will" but vary in quantity and quality according to how much knowledge and judgment the individual possesses.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

The Paradox of Free Will
Dennis Waite at the Yoga International website
Science tends to support claims that we don’t have free will. The experiments of Benjamin Libet (reported in Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 1985) and Daniel Wegner (American Psychologist, 1999) demonstrate that what we feel to be a conscious decision to act actually takes place in the brain after the action has already been initiated as a result of mechanical cause-effect processes. It is as though, after the initial input X, there are two separate neurological paths. There is a subconscious process whereby X directly causes the action A. Quite separately, X gives rise to the conscious thought Y, which is followed by the decision to act D. Because D occurs before A, we imagine that D causes A, and thus have the illusion of free will.
X.Y.A.D.

Of course, all of us here no doubt have our own subjective understanding of how they become intertwined in our own head when something out in the world comes to our own attention and we choose, "choose", or "choose" a reaction...a behavior.

Only I suspect that none of us are brain scientists. We don't actually conduct our own experiments on brains using fMIR technology to probe the brain "in action". So, we are forced to Google it. Or to read about it in scientific publications. Noting the experiments conducted and the conclusions reached by those who are neuroscientists.

https://www.google.com/search?q=neurosc ... nt=gws-wiz

Dozens and dozens and dozens of links to go to.

Same with videos on youtube: https://www.google.com/search?q=neurosc ... nt=gws-wiz

So, take some time and explore them. Get back to us on what the "scientific consensus" seems to be.
Practically speaking, this does not change anything (few people are even aware of these experiments).


And far, far, far fewer are actually conducting them. Which means that most of us here are approaching the free will conundrum "philosophically". We attempt to "think up" -- deduce -- what seems reasonable to us based on [by and large] the part where, in our gut, we "just know" that we have free will. And when those like me note that we "just know" that we do in our dreams as well, the argument then switches to I "just know" that the wide-awake Self is different.

And, sure, no doubt about it, that may well be the case. But then back to the gap between the folks probing to explain this scientifically and us philosophers with our own less tangible "intellectual" leaps of faith.

Some of them of course are more...spiritual.
But the implications are quite significant and highlight the fundamental tenets of Advaita philosophy. We believe we are these bodies and minds, but we are not. They carry on quite happily without interference. They are simply waves, rising and falling on the ocean of consciousness. The problems arise when we identify with them. Although already free, perfect, complete, and unlimited, we then believe ourselves to be suffering individuals trapped in imperfect and mortal frames. From the absolute viewpoint of Advaita, there is no duality. There is therefore no “actual” creation: there are no people, no objects, and no action. Consequently, there are also no concepts, including that of free will.
Got that?

Okay, explain it to Mary in the throes of agony...pondering whether to abort or not to abort her unborn baby. Explain to her how she is making this choice but she is not.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

The Paradox of Free Will
Dennis Waite at the Yoga International website
Another helpful way to think about it is in terms of the extent that we are in the present and directing our attention. If we are miles away, we inevitably do things in a habitual mechanical manner. On the other hand, if we are alert, there is an opportunity for the discriminating faculty of the mind to choose between various possible courses of action, depending on which action we perceive as most appropriate.
Once again another "distinction" made in regard to what we do and what we are more or less conscious of doing. I still recall the extraordinary experience I once had driving from the apartment of I woman was falling head over heels in love with near the Pimlico Racetrack and my own apartment in Lauraville. For almost the whole trip I was thinking only about her...and yet another part of me was driving the car! When I finally clicked into the real world, I was simply dumbfounded. Or the times I would read library books to my young daughter. Books I'd read many, many, many times. At times I'd experience a part of my brain thinking about something altogether different while another part was reading to her.

Human consciousness is nothing if not mindboggling. Thus in a wholly determined world, these distinctions either are or are not no less just inherent manifestations of that truly mysterious "only possible reality".

Certainly no less mysterious than "God's will".
Although this act of choosing may still be mechanical in the sense that it is determined by what we have learned in the past, the nature of the action is clearly quite different.
And why would that be? If matter is matter is matter than it's laws are its laws are its laws. Non-living matter, living matter...what's the difference? Clearly there is one. But if, in the end, all matter truly is mechanical how is that not like noting the difference between an engine in a moped and an engine in a jet?
In stillness, other factors, such as morality, can also influence the outcome. Discrimination, as opposed to habit, becomes the driving force. Therefore, the guidance of karma yoga is that we should be in the present, with a still mind, so that discrimination (viveka) may operate and make the correct “free” choice.
Exactly: "free" choice. Karma yoga being just another mind-boggling example of all that we still do not grasp about human consciousness itself. Given that we understand only that which is itself wholly in sync with the only possible reality.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

Free Will and Neuroscience: From Explaining Freedom Away to New Ways of Operationalizing and Measuring It
Andrea Lavazza at the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience website
Introduction—Free Will as a Problem (Not Only) for Science

The concept of free will is hard to define, but crucial to both individual and social life.
Here we go again. Making it all [or almost all] about how we define free will when we have no way of knowing for sure if any definition we give to it is or is not the only definition that we were ever able to give to it. I suspect we'll all go to the grave living with this conundrum.
Free will can be the reason why someone is not sent to jail during a trial upon appealing to insanity: the subject was not “free” when they committed the crime, not because someone was pointing a gun to their head, but because a psychiatric illness prevented them from controlling their actions.
Sure, if your definition of free will accommodates that. Or, if your definition of determinism revolves around the [compelled] assumption that your brain is no less inherently/necessarily propelled by the laws of matter, insanity itself [like sanity] is just another fated/destined manifestation of the only possible reality in the only possible world.

Nothing is not a domino toppling over as it must onto the next domino in line going back to...the Big Bang?

Or cue God? A miracle?
According to a long-standing philosophical tradition, if someone was not “free” when they did something, they cannot be held responsible for their deed. And the freedom in question is both “social” freedom (linked to constraints imposed by our peers or by external factors), and the one indicated by the term free will.
Sigh...

Those pesky compatibilists insisting that even without free will we are still responsible for what we do. Free and "free" somehow being interchangeable "in their heads".

Though [of course] no less off the hook than all the rest of us.
promethean75
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Re: compatibilism

Post by promethean75 »

"Here we go again. Making it all [or almost all] about how we define free will when we have no way of knowing for sure if any definition we give to it is or is not the only definition that we were ever able to give to it. I suspect we'll all go to the grave living with this conundrum."

S'not really a conundrum tho. If you were only ever able to believe determinism is true, then determinism is true. If not, and you can believe something else, then either a) determinism is not true and you have freewill, or b) determinism is true and your belief in something else is mistaken.

But never c) you believe determinism is true and that you have freewill.

Caveat; freewill is in fact a kind of determinism - agent causation - which is not the opposite of determinism. Indeterminism is the opposite... and agent causation is not an indeterminism. Ergo, freewill is not the antithesis to determinism.
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phyllo
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Re: compatibilism

Post by phyllo »

Of course, you could never have not written that.

Check and mate.
promethean75
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Re: compatibilism

Post by promethean75 »

Well yeah that's what I think cuz imma hard determinist. I'm just saying there's no conundrum because if freewill exists, it wouldn't be that I was only ever able to say that I believed one or the other. It's not a catch 22 I'm sayin.

Edit; I could be misunderstanding biggses point tho. If he had one.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

phyllo wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:40 am Of course, you could never have not written that.

Check and mate.
Again, my argument here is always that we seemingly have no way -- scientifically, philosophically, theologically etc. -- to pin down definitively whether I could have opted to do something other than to type these words any more than we can pin down definitively whether you could have opted to do something other than to read them.

Why?

Because "somehow" lifeless, mindless matter configured into living, mindful matter configured into us.

And, to the best of my own current knowledge, no one here can actually explain how that happened or why that happened...ontologically? teleologically?

Or, sure, link me to the Final Solution.

Now, phyllo, in a way I have never been able to grasp believes in...God?

So, of course, that might be the explanation. When God created us, He created souls. And these souls are where the free will is housed.

Only many religious folks insist, as well, that their own God is omniscient. Then the part where we come upon these complex intellectual contraptions -- worlds of words -- that explain how an omniscient God is compatible with mere mortals having free will.

Not sure if phyllo, if he believes in God, argues that his God is all-knowing.
promethean75
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Re: compatibilism

Post by promethean75 »

"no one here can actually explain how that happened or why that happened...ontologically? teleologically?"

I would, but I don't have the GUTS (grand unified theories) to do it.

Buh dum tshhh
promethean75
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Re: compatibilism

Post by promethean75 »

I'm not trying to step on anyone's TOES (theory of everything) tho.

He's killin it folks.
Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Belinda »

'Free will' may be hard to define but if we are to discuss it we must first define it. The most useful way for philosophers to define free will is "Free will is will that is cause of itself."
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phyllo
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Re: compatibilism

Post by phyllo »

... you could have opted to do something other ...
If you wanted to do something else, then you would have done it. That's what you wanted at the time.

And in case you're tempted to post ... "A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants." - Arthur Schopenhauer

A person with free-will also has wants. Where do his/her wants come from?
Again, my argument here is always that we seemingly have no way -- scientifically, philosophically, theologically etc. -- to pin down definitively whether I could have opted to do something other than to type these words any more than we can pin down definitively whether you could have opted to do something other than to read them.

Why?

Because "somehow" lifeless, mindless matter configured into living, mindful matter configured into us.

And, to the best of my own current knowledge, no one here can actually explain how that happened or why that happened...ontologically? teleologically?
Oh yeah. Having an explanation would change everything.

Wait. No. Cause everything would still work as it does now. An explanation would not be useful for anything.
Now, phyllo, in a way I have never been able to grasp believes in...God?

So, of course, that might be the explanation. When God created us, He created souls. And these souls are where the free will is housed.

Only many religious folks insist, as well, that their own God is omniscient. Then the part where we come upon these complex intellectual contraptions -- worlds of words -- that explain how an omniscient God is compatible with mere mortals having free will.

Not sure if phyllo, if he believes in God, argues that his God is all-knowing.
I didn't say anything about God or having free-will.

Promo is an atheist and hard determinist.

So Biggus is not talking to us any more. He's talking to the God folks now.
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phyllo
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Re: compatibilism

Post by phyllo »

Belinda wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:47 am 'Free will' may be hard to define but if we are to discuss it we must first define it. The most useful way for philosophers to define free will is "Free will is will that is cause of itself."
That's will that springs out of nothing?

What use would that be to anyone?
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henry quirk
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Re: compatibilism

Post by henry quirk »

freewill is in fact a kind of determinism - agent causation - which is not the opposite of determinism. Indeterminism is the opposite... and agent causation is not an indeterminism.
This ain't right.

You're confusin' event causation (determinism) with agent causation.

It's lightning strikin' Joe vs Stan strikin' Joe: one is just mindless forces dischargin', part of a causal chain; the other is intentioned, a new causal chain (or, at the very least, an intentionally bent causal chain).

Bottom line: free will (libertarian agent causation) is a middle finger to determinism; it ain't in bed with it.

-----
"Free will is will that is cause of itself."
That ain't right either.

A free will is that which is the cause of its own actions, influenced, perhaps, by what comes before, but not determined by it. A free will begins, bends, and ends causal chains: it is not a mere link in one.
Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Belinda »

phyllo wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 10:39 am
Belinda wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:47 am 'Free will' may be hard to define but if we are to discuss it we must first define it. The most useful way for philosophers to define free will is "Free will is will that is cause of itself."
That's will that springs out of nothing?

What use would that be to anyone?
Usefulness is a cause .
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