Compatibilism is impossible

[Iwannaplato]

So, what we have here is a pattern of distracting away from having to acknowledging anything. What can IC come up with next to try to shift the onus onto FJ rather than acknowledging the now rather long string of errors?

[Immanuel Can]

I can't believe you still don't understand.

My only remaining question is, why are you believing in Compatibilism, since you can't even imagine how it would work?

Who says I can't imagine how it would work?

You do. I asked you to explain how: and evidently, you can't do it.

So either you find it impossible, or you're ashamed of your answer, for some reason. Either way, it's not good.

[Immanuel Can]

...string of errors?

"String of errors?" Name one.

[Flannel Jesus]

My only remaining question is, why are you believing in Compatibilism, since you can't even imagine how it would work?

Who says I can't imagine how it would work?

You do. I asked you to explain how: and evidently, you can't do it.

So either you find it impossible, or you're ashamed of your answer, for some reason. Either way, it's not good.

Or... or... It's not relevant to what I've been saying to you, which I've for some reason had to point out to you for pages, and which you still haven't grasped. I'm starting to think you can't grasp it.

[Iwannaplato]

...string of errors?

"String of errors?" Name one.

Assuming things about what FJ was doing. Misreading the Compatiblism article regarding illusions. Conflating won't with can't. Which, by the way, is a typical fallacious tactic. I will interpret the motivation for your action as the only possible one. I will keep repeating that you can't do this even though any rational person could see a number of motives. I don't know what FJs' motive is here, but a good one would be that it's a distraction from the mistakes you've made and which he has pointed out, and well.
It seems like you can't acknowledge any errors, so you shift to a demand that someone prove something to you. It's a separate issue. You're distracting, rather than acknowledging, or defending. Or, perhaps you really don't understand that you're raising a separate issue. But regardless you now focus on your mindreading on him, and focus on another issue rather than admit anything or offering support for your positions and assertions which he criticized. It's a not relevant shifting of the onus.

As a third party, for example, I could say: perhaps FJ is wrong in his justification for compatibilism - which he hasn't presented. But this does not mean all your mistakes magically go away. You're hinging these two issues on each other. He could be spot on, and he was, about your various errors AND have a problem with his justification for the belief in compatiblism. They are separate issues.

[Consul]

What I am arguing is that free will is impossible in a deterministic world.

Libertarian free will (as described by Chisholm) surely is.

"[E]ach of us, when we act, is a prime mover unmoved. In doing what we do, we cause certain events to happen, and nothing—or no one—causes us to cause those events to happen."

(Chisholm, Roderick M. On Metaphysics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. p. 12)

[Consul]

Compatibilism basically says that there are no uncaused events.

Therefore, free-will is only ever free from external constrain or coercion.

That's compatibilist free-will.

We know we have compatibilist free will (as defined by Hobbes, Locke, and Hume), but the really interesting question is whether we have libertarian free will.

"By LIBERTY, is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments: which impediments, may oft take away part of a man's power to do what he would; but cannot hinder him from using the power left him, according as his judgment, and reason shall dictate to him."

(Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. 1651. Pt. I: Ch. XIV; §2)

"LIBERTY, or FREEDOM, signifieth (properly) the absence of opposition; (by opposition, I mean external impediments of motion;) and may be applied no less to irrational, and inanimate creatures, than to rational."

(Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. 1651. Pt. II: Ch. XXI; §1)

"[A] FREEMAN, is he, that in those things, which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to."
…
"[F]rom the use of the word free-will, no liberty can be inferred of the will, desire, or inclination, but the liberty of the man; which consisteth in this, that he finds no stop, in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclination to do."

(Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. 1651. Pt. II: Ch. XXI; §2)

"[L]iberty is the absence of all the impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsical quality of the agent."

(Hobbes, Thomas. "Of Liberty and Necessity." 1654. Reprinted in: D. D. Raphael, British Moralists 1650–1800, Vol. 1: Hobbes–Gay. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969. p. 67)

"[A] free agent is he that can do if he will, and forbear if he will; and that liberty is the absence of external impediments. "

(Hobbes, Thomas. "Of Liberty and Necessity." 1654. Reprinted in: D. D. Raphael, British Moralists 1650–1800, Vol. 1: Hobbes–Gay. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969. p. 68)

"Liberty…is the power a man has to do or forbear doing any particular action, according as its doing or forbearance has the actual preference in the mind, which is the same thing as to say, according as he himself wills it."

(Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 1690. Bk. II: Ch. XXI; §15.)

"By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may. Now this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one, who is not a prisoner and in chains. Here then is no subject of dispute."

(Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 1748. Sect. VIII: Pt. I; §23)

[phyllo]

We know we have compatibilist free will (as defined by Hobbes, Locke, and Hume), but the really interesting question is whether we have libertarian free will.

I don't see any libertarian free-will. I see people acting on desires, reasons, motivations, ...

In doing what we do, we cause certain events to happen, and nothing—or no one—causes us to cause those events to happen.

"Nothing -or no one- causes us ... " ?

If this is happening then it ought to be easy to see and to document. Something a bit more detailed and thorough than Bahman's fork examples would be nice.

[Immanuel Can]

Who says I can't imagine how it would work?

You do. I asked you to explain how: and evidently, you can't do it.

So either you find it impossible, or you're ashamed of your answer, for some reason. Either way, it's not good.

Or... or... It's not relevant

Or it is.

And yes, it most certainly is.

[Immanuel Can]

...string of errors?

"String of errors?" Name one.

Assuming things about what FJ was doing....

No. Proof. Quote me. Show me doing it. Vague, unfounded slanders not allowed.

[Iwannaplato]

"String of errors?" Name one.

Assuming things about what FJ was doing....

No. Proof. Quote me. Show me doing it. Vague, unfounded slanders not allowed.

You seem to have conveniently missed the main point of the post. You could both be wrong, for example. Whether or not FJ can demonstrate compatibilism to be the case has nothing to with whether your interpretation of compatiblism or the article in the SEP were correct. You jumped from the latter to the former instead as if they were hinged.

YOu have a habit of assuming that others bear the onus and shifting the discussion to give them the onus, instead of continuing to support your assertions.

It's what children do.

[Immanuel Can]

Assuming things about what FJ was doing....

No. Proof. Quote me. Show me doing it. Vague, unfounded slanders not allowed.

You seem to have conveniently missed the main point of the post.

No, no...no dodging out now.

You made a very specific claim, one intended to be insulting and denigrating, obviously. And you claimed there was a "long string" of evidence.

You need to substantiate your claim. Let's see the evidence.

Quote me. Prove it.

[attofishpi]

IC, you keep missing addressing the below, are you resigned to the fact that I am right and you are wrong?

That COMPATIBILISM is correct (allowing compatibility between Determinism and Free-Will)

The problem for both sides is what to do with two clear facts: 1) that all choices happen within circumstances, or can be influenced by things, but 2) that our powers of making choices seem to us to be so genuine that we all act, all the time, as if Determinism is not the case. And this is the Gordian Knot that Compatibilism tries to cut: it tries to say "Determinism is true, but since we don't know it's true, and since we act like it's not, the two things are "compatible."

But they're not. Either human will makes A difference, or human will makes NO difference. If it makes any difference at all, then the "free will" position is true; if it makes none at all, then Determinism is true.

Your premises are non-sequitur to your conclusion that it's either Determinism or Free-Will with no Compatibilism.

Nobody can refute against the fundamental property of the observable universe, that it operates by deterministic causality. However, humans having free-will within that deterministic universe and having some affect on the causality of the rest of the causality of the deterministic universe does NOT mean compatibilism is not valid.

So Compatibilism has no real status or value as an explanation.

Only to you, likely because you don't like the concept of any type of determinism where the universe is concerned since that would conflict with your faith in God and 'His' direction(s).

I can help you on that point as one with understanding of God, but you probably won't want to hear what I have to say.

[Iwannaplato]

No. Proof. Quote me. Show me doing it. Vague, unfounded slanders not allowed.

You seem to have conveniently missed the main point of the post.

No, no...no dodging out now.

You made a very specific claim, one intended to be insulting and denigrating, obviously. And you claimed there was a "long string" of evidence.

You need to substantiate your claim. Let's see the evidence.

Quote me. Prove it.

I'll do it when you respond to FJ's cogent criticism of your assertions. Let's do it in duck order. No dodging out that now, IC.

But as it happens I was already specific on the can't vs won't issue. You told FJ if he didn't respond to your challenge to demonstrate compatibilism was true, that meant he can't do that. That is not a logical exclusion of other options. For example, he could think that you had not adequately responded to his objections to both your characterization of compatibilsm and the article and that you were now trying to shift the onus over to him. You presented it as if the only motive could be that he can't do this. If your next step is to say, well, it's the only honorable notice, I disagree. 1) you still would have been conflating but further 2) people often assume that if they can somehow put the onus on another person this is somehow a defense of their own mistakes or possible mistakes. But this is often simply not true. And I explained why not in my previous post.

So, that was on error you made.

But you ignored that in my previous post and tried to put the onus on me, while not bearing the onus for your own earlier assertions. I'll ask FJ to let me know when you've actually responded to his points, rather than trying to shift the onus for the whole thing onto him.

Then I can work on the next error of yours.

Oh, 'slander' was delightfully hysterical....
Hysterical in the sense of overblown emotion, you know, like in the meaning that sexists like you hurled at women.

Yeah, I saw that interaction with Veritas.

[Immanuel Can]

You seem to have conveniently missed the main point of the post.

No, no...no dodging out now.

You made a very specific claim, one intended to be insulting and denigrating, obviously. And you claimed there was a "long string" of evidence.

You need to substantiate your claim. Let's see the evidence.

Quote me. Prove it.

I'll do it when...

No, I know you won't. It was bunk from the start.