How is the Bible the Word of God?

[1robin]

Sorry, wrong.

Then I guess Stanford just can't get it's encyclopedia department squared away.

Compatibilists do not reject physical determination of our actions. I wonder where you read that. S.Carroll and D. Dennett are compatibists: do you really think they believe our will, and what follows, is not determined by previous initial coditions of the Universe and it is not subject to the laws of physics? As you said, this position has no metaphysical components, and what is not metaphysical? Either metametaphysical or physical, ... Your call.

Holy cow. We went from is determinism true, to what compatabalism means, now we are at what do Sean Carol and poor old Dennett think. I don't know what Carol thinks and this discussion is not affected what so ever by what he thinks, and I could not care less about what Dennett thinks (he is a moron in my opinion). The issue was is determinism true, since I introduced the term I was ok with discussing what compatablism means and I have provided the definitions necessary to explain it several times, however I must draw the line with discussing what Carol thinks in particular. It is not relevant and I did not introduce him into the discussion.

1. It matters whether determinism was true. I gave trillions of examples which you have yet to show how determinism can explain, and until you can then determinism is not the only game in town.
2. It matters less what compatablism means but as I said I introduced the term so I have given the definitions for it and they justify what I have said about it.
3. If determinism also determines freewill then why do they call it free? Why do they have two radically different terms for the same thing? If it is nothing but determinism then why call it freewill? If both are the determined why try to discuss whether they are compatible? What your defining if true makes no sense out of what if defined my way makes perfect sense. And by my way I mean the way Stanford of a hundred other scholastic societies define them.

Incompabilism simply claims that free will is not possible with physical determination. Compatibists say it is. While they both believe that our actions are physically determined.

That is what you were saying about compatibalism. You said despite using the term freewill, compatibilists thought determinism the only game in town, they don't. The think free will what it's name suggests. Free, free from what you might ask, free from the only thing you say is true from a - z, determinism.

I think you are confusing compatibilists with libertarians.

Have you read "well named" post #323? It is all there, in much better English than mine, or ours, lol.

Ciao

- viole

I know I read much of it, I don't remember if I read all of it. I do think we are having a language breakdown here. Let me take a stab at some of what might be the problems.

1. Do you think I am saying determinism no longer exists if freewill does. I am not, determinism explains the majority of what occurs in the universe, however it does not explain what many creatures with higher intelligence do. We actually have the power to choose a thing despite any coercion or influences determinism may provide. That is what explains the reality we find our selves in.
2. Do you think I am saying determinism cannot produce a brain. I actually do not think it can unaided but for the purposes of this debate I was willing to grant that maybe it could. However once it produce a brain that could weigh choices, predict the future, learn from the past, have moral intuitions, determinism ceased to potentially be the only player in town.
3. If freewill is not free from determinism (IOW it can defy determinism's influences) then why in the world did they put the term "free" in there to begin with? You do not call deterministic systems free. What is free will free from?
4. Having only one thing does not necessitate anyone think it is compatible with it's self. If determinism = X = freewill then we have the case where there is no inherent contradiction to claim compatibility for.

I mentioned before than most atheist world views produce self defeating paradoxes in the end. The paradox here would be that if I had no choice but to conclude determinism was true then that would instantly render that conclusion untrustworthy. The only way I could trust the conclusion that determinism was true would be if I actually had a choice in the matter which would mean it was therefor false. I have yet to see any atheistic world view that does not end eventually in self defeating annihilation yet.

 

[viole]

Then I guess Stanford just can't get it's encyclopedia department squared away.

3. If determinism also determines freewill then why do they call it free? Why do they have two radically different terms for the same thing? If it is nothing but determinism then why call it freewill? If both are the determined why try to discuss whether they are compatible? What your defining if true makes no sense out of what if defined my way makes perfect sense. And by my way I mean the way Stanford of a hundred other scholastic societies define them.

I think it is quite obvious that you did not read the article on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at the chapter about compatibilism, since it starts exactly with a warning concerning the different and malleble definitions of free will people have. Your definition of free will might not correspond at all with the one of compatibilists.

Your critique here is not a definition of compatibilism or a justification of their position, but a a direct noncompatibilist attack to their position. You do not accept that you can make sense of free will under the general applicability of determinism (understandably), while it is exactly their position that we can. If you actually took care of reading that article on SEP, you will see that all attacks to their position are similar to yours, clearly indicating that they do not see exception to determinisms, not even for our free will, yet they think, somehow, that you can still have free will even if your will, and what follows, has been physically determined.

Your idea that they see exceptions to determinism when intentional intelligence is involved, and that is why they are called comptibilists, is frankly ridicolous. That would make their position a no-issue indistinguishable from metaphysical libertarians or other uncompatibilists, and there is no evidence whatsoever on that SEP article that could point to such a concession or temporary suspension of determinism for them, unless you care to point it to me.

So, in a nutshell:

1) people who believe that a general, unconditional, applicability of determinism does not prevent to make sense of free will (and therefore moral responsability) are Compatibists.

2) people who do not believe such are incompatibists and they divide in two subcategories:

2a) determinism is true, therefore free will does not exists
2b) free will exists,therefore determinism is not always applicable (metaphysical libertarians, you)

I oscillate between 1) and 2a) depending on the definition of free will.

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

I think it is quite obvious that you did not read the article on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at the chapter about compatibilism, since it starts exactly with a warning concerning the different and malleble definitions of free will people have. Your definition of free will might not correspond at all with the one of compatibilists.

Actually I did read it. It was actually a paper written in a moral context. IOW whatever version of free-will was considered was truly free because it was relevant to responsibility. If free-will is not free from determinism it is not free and is not relevant to responsibility.

Besides you di not contradict the definition of free-will I gave. Your simply saying it is not composed of one static definition, not that it has an trait included in that paper that makes it inconsistent with determinism.

Your critique here is not a definition of compatibilism or a justification of their position, but a a direct noncompatibilist attack to their position. You do not accept that you can make sense of free will under the general applicability of determinism (understandably), while it is exactly their position that we can. If you actually took care of reading that article on SEP, you will see that all attacks to their position are similar to yours, clearly indicating that they do not see exception to determinisms, not even for our free will, yet they think, somehow, that you can still have free will even if your will, and what follows, has been physically determined.

This is not complicated. Free-will assumes freedom. Freedom from what, determinism. To define freewill as a component of determinism is to yet again let atheism create a nihilistic paradox where none exists.

Your idea that they see exceptions to determinism when intentional intelligence is involved, and that is why they are called comptibilists, is frankly ridicolous. That would make their position a no-issue indistinguishable from metaphysical libertarians or other uncompatibilists, and there is no evidence whatsoever on that SEP article that could point to such a concession or temporary suspension of determinism for them, unless you care to point it to me.

I think the exact opposite. To say freewill does not conflict with determinism is to say free will is not free, that no inconsistency even exists to claim is compatible, to complicate the obvious, and to trivialize the momentous. In short to say free-will is consistent with determinism is to instantly render the term "compatible" incoherent and useless.

So, in a nutshell:

1) people who believe that a general, unconditional, applicability of determinism does not prevent to make sense of free will (and therefore moral responsability) are Compatibists.

You simply not understand what I am saying. It is too clear and too simplistic to be argued against. Let me try this one more time.

1. For free-will to have a meaningful definition it must include freedom. Freedom from what, determinism. That is exactly the definition of free-will you must have to even allow for a debate on moral responsibility. 2. To say free-will is not free, is to render the term meaningless, redundant, and of no value. In short you inventing un-unnecessary for anything. Your making it into determinism and retaining a separate label without need.
3. To say determinism = X and that freewill = X is to instantly destroy any need for claiming the two are compatible. Of course X is compatible with X, so there is no surface contradiction to debate any compatibility about. In other words defining free-will that way makes the entire discussion and terms incoherent.
4. There is no need for anyone to say Jim is compatible with Jim. Only if Joe is not Jim do we need any discussion about compatibility between them. So free-will is not determinism. It is an exception to it.

2) people who do not believe such are incompatibists and they divide in two subcategories:

2a) determinism is true, therefore free will does not exists
2b) free will exists, therefore determinism is not always applicable (metaphysical libertarians, you)

Lets try another definition.

Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. Compatibilists believe freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.
Compatibilism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1. Note the terms there. Freewill is juxtaposed with determinism meaning freewill is not determinism and therefor not determined.
2. Note the term usage here. Freedom implies freedom from a thing, namely determinism.
3. The terms used here merely reminded me of something I wanted to mention. What the causes are irrelevant to the discussion. I do not care whether compatibilists believe that free-will can be present without God. This conversation was supposed to be about whether pure determinism exists. Not what compatibilists believe, and even less how they account for free-will.
4. Note the this entire definition is contradictory to position 2a. And definition 2a is what you were supposed to be defending and me challenging.

Incompatibilism is the view that a deterministic universe is completely at odds with the notion that people have a free will; that there is a dichotomy between determinism and free will where philosophers must choose one or the other. standard argument against free will.

1. Note the terms here. This one does grant the assumption that freewill exists. It sets determinism and free-will as opposites and does not grant free-will as compatibles does. This is your position. Or at least this is the position you initially began with.
2. Notice the choice here between two things. This is your view. You believe we have determinism and so we cannot have free-will and so that makes you a an incompatabalist.

I oscillate between 1) and 2a) depending on the definition of free will.

Ciao

- viole

Note how far this conversation has deteriorated. We went from discussing whether determinism can explain the trillions of goals and plans that are actualized despite it's having no intention of doing either, to quibbling over what labels to apply to each group. Do you realize that even if you were right about the labels all that would show is that I selected the wrong word to describe a world view by. Who cares about that? I think you are perfectly wrong, but I care about whether free-will exists and is actually free, not what we call that view point. IOW banging my head on a wall may not be the best use of my time, but banging it on an irrelevant wall is definitely not justifiable.

 

[lovemuffin]

1. For free-will to have a meaningful definition it must include freedom. Freedom from what, determinism. That is exactly the definition of free-will you must have to even allow for a debate on moral responsibility.

This is obviously where compatibilists disagree. I think if you want to argue that you're uninterested in the compatibilist redefinition of "free will" than that's fine, but I don't think you can successfully argue that it's incoherent or self-contradictory unless you misrepresent it. Perhaps part of the confusion is that along with redefining free will compatibilism also certainly understands "moral responsibility" in a different way than libertarianism. That is, in a more or less "legal" way, by analogy. You are morally responsible for an act if you performed that act of your own volition, where "of your own volition" means that you were not coerced and were mentally competent.

So it is true that "to say that free will is compatible with determinism is to say that free will isn't [metaphysically] free", but that's not a contradiction, it's simply a different definition of freedom. The argument can't be resolved in a purely semantic way because there is no single objectively correct definition of "freedom", and it's clear from the legal analogy that in practice we use the word freedom without always meaning metaphysical freedom. There are also interesting surveys that attempt to determine what the folk concept of "free will" really is and they have shown that it's not clear cut that people's naive assumptions are libertarian. See for example here.

 

[viole]

Actually I did read it. It was actually a paper written in a moral context. IOW whatever version of free-will was considered was truly free because it was relevant to responsibility. If free-will is not free from determinism it is not free and is not relevant to responsibility.

Besides you di not contradict the definition of free-will I gave. Your simply saying it is not composed of one static definition, not that it has an trait included in that paper that makes it inconsistent with determinism.

This is not complicated. Free-will assumes freedom. Freedom from what, determinism. To define freewill as a component of determinism is to yet again let atheism create a nihilistic paradox where none exists.

I think the exact opposite. To say freewill does not conflict with determinism is to say free will is not free, that no inconsistency even exists to claim is compatible, to complicate the obvious, and to trivialize the momentous. In short to say free-will is consistent with determinism is to instantly render the term "compatible" incoherent and useless.

You simply not understand what I am saying. It is too clear and too simplistic to be argued against. Let me try this one more time.

1. For free-will to have a meaningful definition it must include freedom. Freedom from what, determinism. That is exactly the definition of free-will you must have to even allow for a debate on moral responsibility. 2. To say free-will is not free, is to render the term meaningless, redundant, and of no value. In short you inventing un-unnecessary for anything. Your making it into determinism and retaining a separate label without need.
3. To say determinism = X and that freewill = X is to instantly destroy any need for claiming the two are compatible. Of course X is compatible with X, so there is no surface contradiction to debate any compatibility about. In other words defining free-will that way makes the entire discussion and terms incoherent.
4. There is no need for anyone to say Jim is compatible with Jim. Only if Joe is not Jim do we need any discussion about compatibility between them. So free-will is not determinism. It is an exception to it.

Lets try another definition.

Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. Compatibilists believe freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.
Compatibilism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1. Note the terms there. Freewill is juxtaposed with determinism meaning freewill is not determinism and therefor not determined.
2. Note the term usage here. Freedom implies freedom from a thing, namely determinism.
3. The terms used here merely reminded me of something I wanted to mention. What the causes are irrelevant to the discussion. I do not care whether compatibilists believe that free-will can be present without God. This conversation was supposed to be about whether pure determinism exists. Not what compatibilists believe, and even less how they account for free-will.
4. Note the this entire definition is contradictory to position 2a. And definition 2a is what you were supposed to be defending and me challenging.

Incompatibilism is the view that a deterministic universe is completely at odds with the notion that people have a free will; that there is a dichotomy between determinism and free will where philosophers must choose one or the other. standard argument against free will.

1. Note the terms here. This one does grant the assumption that freewill exists. It sets determinism and free-will as opposites and does not grant free-will as compatibles does. This is your position. Or at least this is the position you initially began with.
2. Notice the choice here between two things. This is your view. You believe we have determinism and so we cannot have free-will and so that makes you a an incompatabalist.




Note how far this conversation has deteriorated. We went from discussing whether determinism can explain the trillions of goals and plans that are actualized despite it's having no intention of doing either, to quibbling over what labels to apply to each group. Do you realize that even if you were right about the labels all that would show is that I selected the wrong word to describe a world view by. Who cares about that? I think you are perfectly wrong, but I care about whether free-will exists and is actually free, not what we call that view point. IOW banging my head on a wall may not be the best use of my time, but banging it on an irrelevant wall is definitely not justifiable.

Well, let's then take another excerpt from SEP:

The classical compatibilist account of free will, even if incomplete, can be contrasted with the Source Incompatibilist Argument discussed in section 2.2. The dispute is over the truth of the first premise of that argument: A person acts of her own free will only if she is its ultimate source. No doubt, for one to be an ultimate source of her action, no explanation for her action can trace back to factors prior to her. This the compatibilist cannot have since it requires the falsity of determinism. But according to the classical compatibilist account of free will, so long as one's action arises from one's unencumbered desires, she is a genuine source of her action. Surely she is not an ultimate source, only a mediated one. But she is a source all the same, and this sort of source of action, the classical compatibilist will argue, is sufficient to satisfy the kind of freedom required for free will and moral responsibility. This general classical compatibilist strategy—developing an appropriately nuanced account of the source of agency—offers a lasting contribution to the free will debate. Contemporary compatibilist variations must adopt some similar posture towards the Source Incompatibilist Argument. (SEP on compatibilism)

Notice: surely she is not an ultimate source of her choices (for a compatibilist) for the simple reason that this ultimate source is deterministically set in stone. And: this (that decisions cannot be traced back to factors prior to her existence) cannot be accepted by a comptibilist because that would entail the falsity of determinism (note that compatibilists do not accept any loophole in the deterministic causal chain).

But again, if you insist that compatibilism entails a momentary suspension of determinism in any step, show to me where this appears in any philosophical essay of your choice. Not your interpretation only, please, since you seem to arbitrarily create an equivocation between freedom and suspension of determination, which flies in the face to what compatibilists claim, as absurd as it might seem to you.

What they say is that you can make sense of freedom EVEN if your ultimate source of this freedom is determinated and set in stone prior to your existence. How they defend this apparently absurd position is what the whole SEP article is about. Incidentally, If they really claimed that determinism is momentarily suspended in any step that involves our volition, then the whole article would reduce to a couple of lines, obviously.

So, while I wait for a not existing evidence that compatibilists accept suspension of determinism in at least some cases, in order to justify freedom, let me ask you a question, since you are obviously an incompatibilist: what was the ultimate source (in the sense of the SEP article) of your decision to, say, go to Wal Mart that famous day?

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

This is obviously where compatibilists disagree. I think if you want to argue that you're uninterested in the compatibilist redefinition of "free will" than that's fine, but I don't think you can successfully argue that it's incoherent or self-contradictory unless you misrepresent it. Perhaps part of the confusion is that along with redefining free will compatibilism also certainly understands "moral responsibility" in a different way than libertarianism. That is, in a more or less "legal" way, by analogy. You are morally responsible for an act if you performed that act of your own volition, where "of your own volition" means that you were not coerced and were mentally competent.

So it is true that "to say that free will is compatible with determinism is to say that free will isn't [metaphysically] free", but that's not a contradiction, it's simply a different definition of freedom. The argument can't be resolved in a purely semantic way because there is no single objectively correct definition of "freedom", and it's clear from the legal analogy that in practice we use the word freedom without always meaning metaphysical freedom. There are also interesting surveys that attempt to determine what the folk concept of "free will" really is and they have shown that it's not clear cut that people's naive assumptions are libertarian. See for example here.

I gave a long reply then accidentally deleted it so I am only going to supply the essentials it contained, sorry.

1. The original subject was is hard determinism true. We keep getting layers away from that original issue. I think the metaphysical vagaries to by one step more removed from that original issue.
2. The only definition of freewill need here is a very basic one. Namely that freewill assumes freedom from, and what it naturally is free from is being determined. Any deeper understanding of the term freewill is unnecessarily complex for this discussion.
3. I was not saying compatabalism is incoherent. I was saying that if you define free-will as no longer free it becomes incoherent.
4. I don't know what to do with your metaphysical qualification. Metaphysical is not an easily defined word but I think in general it means the ontological nature of a thing. To me saying that freewill is not metaphysically free is to hopelessly over complicate what should be a simplistic argument.

Best I can tell it is also the opinion of the Stanford encyclopedia that metaphysical claims are unnecessary.

Given that the conditions are constructed, they need not be constrained by prior metaphysical questions concerning the nature of the persons alleged to possess free will.
Compatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Knowing you, you probably have a good point here somewhere but as of yet I do not see it.

 

[outhouse]

I gave

Nothing to the effect the bible is divine outside personal perception and imagination.

 

[lovemuffin]

Re: (1) I think the best answer is that no one knows. Well, actually it's probably unlikely that hard determinism is true, but compatibilism is not so much based on adopting hard determinism as on rejecting libertarianism.

Re: (4) By "metaphysical" in this context I mean the possibility of choosing A over B regardless of any possible causal determination. "metaphysical free will" is "contra-causal free will" is "libertarian free will". They are all synonymous terms in the way I would use them. One reason for using metaphysical is that it's given that modern physics deals with a certain kind of determinism. Even in QM where there is randomness, the state functions evolve deterministically. That may not be "hard" determinism but it's some form of determinism. So under libertarianism, as I understand it, the agency of an agent with free will is precisely its ability to choose A over B despite the normal causal determinism of the physical systems involved (brains, bodies, whatever). That possibility of choice is a metaphysical possibility, i.e beyond what is described by physics.

The intent of using "metaphysical" is not to complicate the argument, but to emphasize that in order to compare different views of free will you have to recognize that they define the terms differently and in trying to characterize that difference. It is the difference between agency that is "against" physical determinism (hence metaphysical) vs agency that is an expression of determinism, as in what viole quoted from SEP: "but according to the classical compatibilist account of free will, so long as one's action arises from one's unencumbered desires, she is a genuine source of her action. Surely she is not an ultimate source, only a mediated one."

So libertarian (metaphysical; contra-causal) free will has the mediation of action in a non-physical agent whose choices are in some way unconditioned by physical states of affairs. Compatibilist free will has the mediation of action entirely described by potentially deterministic physical states-of-affairs, but distinguishes between the part of the physical description which is local to the person as a physical entity, essentially one's own body/brain distinct from outside influences at a high level of description. The compatibilist mediation is nuanced in that the distinction between "my" volition and "outside" interference will disappear in a radically reductive account of the physical system, i.e you can't distinguish persons on a sub-atomic level, but compatibilism deals with a higher level of abstraction and doesn't claim to be making ontologically meaningful distinctions. It's not claiming to cut nature at the seams, so to speak.

That's why I use the legal analogy. Courts of law don't want to have to resolve the question in (1) as a matter of science in order to settle disputes about whether or not a contract was signed under duress, or of a person's "own free will", which is why they use a practical definition of "free will" that doesn't depend on the answer at all. In other words, they use a definition that is "compatible" with either determinism or non-determinism

 

[1robin]

Well, let's then take another excerpt from SEP:

The classical compatibilist account of free will, even if incomplete, can be contrasted with the Source Incompatibilist Argument discussed in section 2.2. The dispute is over the truth of the first premise of that argument: A person acts of her own free will only if she is its ultimate source. No doubt, for one to be an ultimate source of her action, no explanation for her action can trace back to factors prior to her. This the compatibilist cannot have since it requires the falsity of determinism. But according to the classical compatibilist account of free will, so long as one's action arises from one's unencumbered desires, she is a genuine source of her action. Surely she is not an ultimate source, only a mediated one. But she is a source all the same, and this sort of source of action, the classical compatibilist will argue, is sufficient to satisfy the kind of freedom required for free will and moral responsibility. This general classical compatibilist strategy—developing an appropriately nuanced account of the source of agency—offers a lasting contribution to the free will debate. Contemporary compatibilist variations must adopt some similar posture towards the Source Incompatibilist Argument. (SEP on compatibilism)

1. I completely disagree with the red part of that. Even if some of the factors can be traced to prior states of affairs the decision it's self can still be perfectly free. However I do not think that the central claim your making so I will not argue with this further.
2. I am a little confused because the blue part seems to support my view and contradict what is in red above. My understanding is these are two competing views but the one in blue is the one settled upon. The part in blue seems to grant truly free-will. IOW it is a decision not wholly determined. It may be influenced, it may even be coerced but it is not forced by any prior state of affairs.

Notice: surely she is not an ultimate source of her choices (for a compatibilist) for the simple reason that this ultimate source is deterministically set in stone. And: this (that decisions cannot be traced back to factors prior to her existence) cannot be accepted by a comptibilist because that would entail the falsity of determinism (note that compatibilists do not accept any loophole in the deterministic causal chain).

Your almost getting it here. Your making an assumption that a compatabalism grants a-priori that determinism is the all pervading fact of every matter. This is a false assumption. If it was true there are no longer two things to find a compatibility for, there is only determinism. It is the incompatabalists that allow only one or the other and chose to allow only determinism.

But again, if you insist that compatibilism entails a momentary suspension of determinism in any step, show to me where this appears in any philosophical essay of your choice. Not your interpretation only, please, since you seem to arbitrarily create an equivocation between freedom and suspension of determination, which flies in the face to what compatibilists claim, as absurd as it might seem to you.

You have yet to show any a priori assumption that pure determinism is true for compatibilists. Your assuming what to me is an inherent incoherent assumption made by others.

You only have two choices here.
1. Either I am right and compatibilists find two distinct things compatible which is a coherent position. Everything makes sense here. The freedom in freewill, the synthesis between a thesis and an anti-thesis. A perfect description of reality. A proper use of terminology.
2. Or you are right and every compatibilist has created a meaningless paradoxical position in harmony with neither reality or theory. I will make this second point more clearly below.

What they say is that you can make sense of freedom EVEN if your ultimate source of this freedom is determinated and set in stone prior to your existence. How they defend this apparently absurd position is what the whole SEP article is about. Incidentally, If they really claimed that determinism is momentarily suspended in any step that involves our volition, then the whole article would reduce to a couple of lines, obviously.

So you have created a free will that is not free from anything? Since I apparently have no power what so ever to show you that freewill is not free if determined let me give you an example of this kind of self eradicating terminological use in another context.

This is an example of terminological juggling that renders the terms it employs meaningless by how they are used.

Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going. ”
—Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design, 2010

So we have nothing in Hawking's claim here as the source for everything. Leaving alone for now the logical absurdity that nothing will create something, lets instead see what nothing actually is here. It appears nothing has natural laws, it appears nothing has mass because we see it has gravity. So when he says nothing he actually means the exact opposite. His own terminology produces a self destructive conclusion which renders the whole a smoking ruin of the most simplistic philosophy.

This is what your doing with freewill. You have defined freewill to be free from nothing, in fact to be the exact opposite of freewill. You have defined it to be 100% determined. If freewill was actually 100% determined then it equals determinism and is no longer a thing in need of any explanation or capability.

That to me is to violate the most simplistic doctrines of language use and to create as Hawking did a smoking ruin of self contradiction.

So, while I wait for a not existing evidence that compatibilists accept suspension of determinism in at least some cases, in order to justify freedom, let me ask you a question, since you are obviously an incompatibilist: what was the ultimate source (in the sense of the SEP article) of your decision to, say, go to Wal Mart that famous day?

So despite your not providing a statement proving your point I am to provide a quote disproving it from compatabalism? You got those goal posts and burdens on railway cars or what?

I do not know what I call myself. I believe that determinism exists and that actual freewill exists as well. Whatever that is, it is not incompatibles. Incompatabalists are those that that find that one displaces the other and like you decided determinism displaces freewill. Not me.

However to answer your question the ultimate source of my decisions are a God given free will that is actually free. It can be influenced and maybe coerced (or the attempt made anyway) but it cannot be determined. That explains reality and that was the issue we began discussing.

Let me ask you one in return. Why is a process (determinism) that is blind, unintelligent, un-willful, and that lacks rational intent the source of intent? Why is it so obliging that my chain of causation and yours produced a semi-rational debate with hundreds of components that happen to all line up in the exact same manner as they would have if we did have free-wills? Why does it give you a plan and also the trillions of necessities to carry it out since it it's self has no plan, and does not care about fulfilling anything?

 

[1robin]

Re: (1) I think the best answer is that no one knows. Well, actually it's probably unlikely that hard determinism is true, but compatibilism is not so much based on adopting hard determinism as on rejecting libertarianism.

Since my original intent was to show hard determinism was not true the we have an accord on the issue I was interested in. The only reason I mentioned the word compatabalism was to make sure the person I was talking to was a hard or pure determinist meaning that all states of affairs except the original state was determined by prior states of affairs in every way. I think my understanding of what compatabalism is accurate but it is not of any importance to me.

Re: (4) By "metaphysical" in this context I mean the possibility of choosing A over B regardless of any possible causal determination. "metaphysical free will" is "contra-causal free will" is "libertarian free will". They are all synonymous terms in the way I would use them. One reason for using metaphysical is that it's given that modern physics deals with a certain kind of determinism. Even in QM where there is randomness, the state functions evolve deterministically. That may not be "hard" determinism but it's some form of determinism. So under libertarianism, as I understand it, the agency of an agent with free will is precisely its ability to choose A over B despite the normal causal determinism of the physical systems involved (brains, bodies, whatever). That possibility of choice is a metaphysical possibility, i.e beyond what is described by physics.

Some random points here.
1. I think the use of metaphysics here to be a needless complication of the discussion. It is a very pliable word which is defined almost as many ways as those who use it. In essence it means the nature of, which is what ontology means and ontology is far more emphatic.
2. The quantum is still too infantile a science to draw lessons from of this kind. It has at least ten different mathematical models, no one knows which if any are right. Some are deterministic and some not, but even those that are not may prove to be deterministic in ways we simply are unaware of at this time. Neither the macro universe or the micro is relevant here.
3. My original claim was that defeaters exist for the concept of hard determinism. They usually come in the form of since determinism has no intent and does not have any plan it's impossible it would be so obliging as to both create a trillion desires and then actualize those desires. It would not give me a plan and then allow me to execute hundreds of events in order to complete the plan because it has no interest in the plan or it's fruition. The quantum and Newtonian physics are irrelevant here. We know trillions of events occur each day which require free-will. That as far as I need go.

The intent of using "metaphysical" is not to complicate the argument, but to emphasize that in order to compare different views of free will you have to recognize that they define the terms differently and in trying to characterize that difference. It is the difference between agency that is "against" physical determinism (hence metaphysical) vs agency that is an expression of determinism, as in what viole quoted from SEP: "but according to the classical compatibilist account of free will, so long as one's action arises from one's unencumbered desires, she is a genuine source of her action. Surely she is not an ultimate source, only a mediated one."

I agree but for my needs the vagaries are not important. All I needed was one event that has occurred that was not completely determined by prior states of affairs. I am sure those who wish to split hairs can and have invented all kinds of ideas about free-will. All I need demand of freewill is that it be free in some aspect. So a philosopher may have need of these metaphysical details but my claims did not.

So libertarian (metaphysical; contra-causal) free will has the mediation of action in a non-physical agent whose choices are in some way unconditioned by physical states of affairs. Compatibilist free will has the mediation of action entirely described by potentially deterministic physical states-of-affairs, but distinguishes between the part of the physical description which is local to the person as a physical entity, essentially one's own body/brain distinct from outside influences at a high level of description. The compatibilist mediation is nuanced in that the distinction between "my" volition and "outside" interference will disappear in a radically reductive account of the physical system, i.e you can't distinguish persons on a sub-atomic level, but compatibilism deals with a higher level of abstraction and doesn't claim to be making ontologically meaningful distinctions. It's not claiming to cut nature at the seams, so to speak.

That's why I use the legal analogy. Courts of law don't want to have to resolve the question in (1) as a matter of science in order to settle disputes about whether or not a contract was signed under duress, or of a person's "own free will", which is why they use a practical definition of "free will" that doesn't depend on the answer at all. In other words, they use a definition that is "compatible" with either determinism or non-determinism

What you describe above are things that lead me to believe we are educating ourselves into imbecility. You have one group taking the term freewill which inherently includes "freedom from" and stripping it of what makes it a unique and meaningful term. It basically calls determinism freewill simply because they compartmentalized it. It is a process which makes the original language use meaningless. In the second you seem to describe a practice which attempts to reconcile two complete opposites. Law is primarily based on responsibility, and responsibility necessitates truly free will. You cannot have both responsibility and total determinism and to attempt it is to force a peg that fits into one hole with no malformation into another by force and call that a harmony.

As I told the other poster I can only see two choices.
1. Either compatibilists are what I have said and use proper terminology, an accurate description of reality, and except a harmony between them.
or
2. They are not what I said and are instead people who have over thought a thing until they destroyed every thing meaningful about it. They have a freewill that is a slave of determinism, no longer have anything in need of being compatible, and no longer have a world view in harmony with reality. They have attempted to combine moral responsibility and a lack of freewill by distorting both.

I thought the first one to be the case since I would not suspect a large group of scholars capable of doing the second.

 

[viole]

So despite your not providing a statement proving your point I am to provide a quote disproving it from compatabalism? You got those goal posts and burdens on railway cars or what?

Nothing of the sort. Since i think you are misrepresenting the philosophical position of a certain class of people (independently from them being right or wrong), I simply asked you to show evidence that compatibilism accepts the suspension of determinism in at least some cases involving intentional agents. You must have read it somewhere. Where?

Since this is obviously not the case, I am not going to hold my breath.

I do not know what I call myself. I believe that determinism exists and that actual freewill exists as well. Whatever that is, it is not incompatibles. Incompatabalists are those that that find that one displaces the other and like you decided determinism displaces freewill. Not me.

Determinism exists? Since you seem to respect the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, let's take a look at what they say about one of the consequences of dterminism being true:

"
---> Notice that an implication of determinism as it applies to a person's conduct is that, if determinism is true, there are (causal) conditions for that person's actions located in the remote past, prior to her birth, that are sufficient for each of her actions.
" (section 1.3 on the section about compatibilism) -> Compatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

So, according to SEP. if determinism, is true, there are (causal) conditions for a person's actions located in the remote past, prior to her birth, that are sufficient for each of her actions. In other words: they necessitate your behaviour.

Do you still think that determinism is true? Or do you think that SEP is wrong?

However to answer your question the ultimate source of my decisions are a God given free will that is actually free. It can be influenced and maybe coerced (or the attempt made anyway) but it cannot be determined. That explains reality and that was the issue we began discussing.

If they cannot be determined, you cannot possibly hold determinism true, since determinism entails that all of your future decisions are causally necessitated by conditions present prior to your birth, as we have seen. In other words: there is only one future possible given a certain prior state, if determinism is true.

And, by the way, if it cannot be determined, then you cannot identify a causal chain of events going far in the past that explains it, correct?

Let me ask you one in return. Why is a process (determinism) that is blind, unintelligent, un-willful, and that lacks rational intent the source of intent?

I think I already answered that. The following proposition is false, in general:

P) Things that have property X, cannot possibly be explained by things not having property X

For instance, if X = "eating ants", I can easily imagine an ultimate explanation for ant-eaters, call it the deterministic Universe or God, that does not necessarily enjoy eating insects.

So, if P is false for X = "eating ants", why should it be necessarily true for X = "having intent"? It is obvious that P is not a tautology (true for every X).

You are applying special pleading without any additional rational justification, and that is a logical fallacy, I am afraid.

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

Nothing of the sort. Since i think you are misrepresenting the philosophical position of a certain class of people (independently from them being right or wrong), I simply asked you to show evidence that compatibilism accepts the suspension of determinism in at least some cases involving intentional agents. You must have read it somewhere. Where?

Since this is obviously not the case, I am not going to hold my breath.

I have become so bored with debating here lately that I no longer have the will to enthusiastically discuss things that do not seem meaningful. I however owe you at least one final response on this issue.

I have been thinking about this issue. I am wiling to grant that perhaps compatibilists believe that only determinism is true but I am only considering doing for three reasons.

1. I am not convinced by a single argument that has been made. I am only questioning what I have come to expect of compatabalism because two intelligent posters (your self and well named) are said to be confident I am wrong.
2. The primary reason I was convinced that no group would believe what you say compatibilists believe is if your right their position is so self contradictory and intellectually nihilistic I could not believe anyone would buy into it. I was thinking on this this weekend and reviewed so many examples of horrific positions that others defend I started to think perhaps a large group of scholars could in fact adopt a position this atrocious. My certainty that common sense would prevent this was eroded after some thought and I am now potentially wiling to believe that some scholars have adopted a position so flawed. As far as to why it is flawed I think I will cover that below at some point.
3. I don't know why your so interested in a secondary semantic technicality but I am not. I began this conversation in order to demonstrate that determinism does not account for billions of every day events, I did not start out caring what the definition of compatabalism was. I want to go back to an issue that matters, and stop spinning my wheels on this one.

Bonus: The position that you say compatibilists hold is so incoherent that the prospect of seeing what you do with it is interesting enough for me to potentially grant it to see what use it is put to.

Regardless you wanted me to find an example of compatabalism granting freewill. Here is one:
Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. Compatibilists believe freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.
Compatibilism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Notice that they believe in two distinct things. Freewill and determinism. It is not determinism and determinism light, not determinism and a category of determinism called freewill, it is truly determined events and truly free events. I could not sit down and construct a more emphatic statement of what you asked for than that. Freewill implies freedom from, freedom from being determined.

However your probably in too deep now and will not back off of your claim, so to avoid wasting time on something so absurdly meaningless let's pretend I grant what you say and instead concentrate on what is wrong with it.

I said we only had two choices.

1. That compatibilists had a coherent position in which two surface inconsistencies were actually claimed to be compatible. If so I have no complaint what so ever, it is a logical, clear, emphatic, position which reflect reality.

OR

2. That compatibilist are playing word games and taking common terms to mean the exact opposite of what they normally do and which does not account for reality. This position is so intellectually bankrupt and so intellectually incoherent I could not bring myself to believe anyone could adopt it but after review of all the ridiculous world views I have seen others adopt I have softened on their ability to embrace the absurd and now grant it is possible. I will if it becomes appropriate launch into all the self contradiction and linguistic nihilism that makes this such an absurd proposition but for now will let others make comments instead.

Compatibilists are sometimes called "soft determinists" pejoratively (William James' term). James accused them of creating a "quagmire of evasion" by stealing the name of freedom to mask their underlying determinism. Immanuel Kant called it a "wretched subterfuge" and "word jugglery."
Compatibilism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As strong and clear as those statement are they do not give a fraction of the problems associated with your view of compatabalism. Even among the fictions non-theists will buy into this one is special.

My computer is bogging down. I will separate this post, continued below:

 

[1robin]

To summarize the last post. I am not convinced by your arguments and have believed the position so horridly flawed that no one would buy it. I however have changed my mind because of your and another's confidence and because after reviewing the terrible positions defending by non-theistic scholars it is still a stretch but possible for me to grant they may in fact have adopted something so horribly misstated. So onward rides the mail.

Determinism exists? Since you seem to respect the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, let's take a look at what they say about one of the consequences of dterminism being true:

I have not once denied determinism exists, my point has been that determinism is not al that exists and there are trillions of events that defy it.

"
---> Notice that an implication of determinism as it applies to a person's conduct is that, if determinism is true, there are (causal) conditions for that person's actions located in the remote past, prior to her birth, that are sufficient for each of her actions.
" (section 1.3 on the section about compatibilism) -> Compatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

This is the position of hard determinism, it is not the conclusion. This simply states one proposition put forward and does not conclude that it is correct. It defies billions of events that occur everyday and produces logical paradoxes which have no solution. Anyone who believed this and still held others morally accountable is morally insane, yet if they believe this and as the same site points out do so they are in fact self contradictory moral monsters.

So, according to SEP. if determinism, is true, there are (causal) conditions for a person's actions located in the remote past, prior to her birth, that are sufficient for each of her actions. In other words: they necessitate your behaviour.

Do you still think that determinism is true? Or do you think that SEP is wrong?

No I most certainly do not think any of that is true, and I don't think the Stanford encyclopedia does either. They simply recorded what some may think.

If they cannot be determined, you cannot possibly hold determinism true, since determinism entails that all of your future decisions are causally necessitated by conditions present prior to your birth, as we have seen. In other words: there is only one future possible given a certain prior state, if determinism is true.

I know what determinism says, the point is that what it says is not true.

And, by the way, if it cannot be determined, then you cannot identify a causal chain of events going far in the past that explains it, correct?

I cannot produce a causal chain of events that produced millions upon millions of events. They can be factors in freewill but cannot determine it. IOW my decision to go to the store and then events being so obligating as to facilitate that desire which it it's self has no interest in is not accounted for through initial conditions alone.

I think I already answered that. The following proposition is false, in general:

P) Things that have property X, cannot possibly be explained by things not having property X

For instance, if X = "eating ants", I can easily imagine an ultimate explanation for ant-eaters, call it the deterministic Universe or God, that does not necessarily enjoy eating insects.

So, if P is false for X = "eating ants", why should it be necessarily true for X = "having intent"? It is obvious that P is not a tautology (true for every X).

You are applying special pleading without any additional rational justification, and that is a logical fallacy, I am afraid.

Ciao

- viole

I don't think your equations cover what I am asking. It is not my claim that because determinism lacks intent it cannot produce a thing with intent. This might be confusing so take your time. To discuss intent we must grant intent exists, but if determinism does not contain intent then that intent is local. I.E. a person has intent. If you read legal codes you will find they mention human intent constantly and never mention natural intent as inherent to any larger system. So if I go to the store then it is my intention to do so, it is not determinisms intent that I actually go to the store. The intent is not contained or controlled by determinism, it is controlled by my freewill. When I see I am out of milk it is important to me to go get some more, determinism does not care, it does not want milk, it does not want anything. If I act on my desire for milk it is my desire that I actualize based upon my will, not determinism's. Reality gives every appearance that initial conditions led to the emergence of freewill, intent, and self determination. All the equations in the world can't change that. It is the theistic view that initial condition were set up by God's freewill to lead to our own freewill. That is what we see. Determinism cannot account for initial conditions, nor our own self interested autonomy no matter how many terms they butcher into meaning the exact opposite of what they originaly meant.

 

[viole]

Notice that they believe in two distinct things. Freewill and determinism. It is not determinism and determinism light, not determinism and a category of determinism called freewill, it is truly determined events and truly free events. I could not sit down and construct a more emphatic statement of what you asked for than that. Freewill implies freedom from, freedom from being determined.

And there is where the compatibilist would not agree with you. I might agree with you, but the compatibilist would definetely not.

They really believe that even if our will is detemined, it is still free, somehow, under certain external conditions. For the simple reason that they use a different notion of freedom Than yours.

Let's see if I can make an analogy. Consider Deep Blue, the great computer chess master. As long as you do not turn the power off, or destroy some of its memory banks, the computer is still FREE to decide what move to play next and play it. For a compatibilist this is all it is required to define freedom, even though she is perfectly aware that the result of the computer choice is determined by physics, the state of the computer memory and the program that it runs.

You will never agree with that because your concept of freedom goes beyond that, and that is why, from your vantage point, their position is absurd. But I suggest you really go through the SEP article and see what they really think before you judge. And take particular care to their definition of freedom.

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

To summarize the last post. I am not convinced by your arguments and have believed the position so horridly flawed that no one would buy it. I however have changed my mind because of your and another's confidence and because after reviewing the terrible positions defending by non-theistic scholars it is still a stretch but possible for me to grant they may in fact have adopted something so horribly misstated. So onward rides the mail.

Yet, this is exactly what they claim.

I have not once denied determinism exists, my point has been that determinism is not al that exists and there are trillions of events that defy it.

Either determinism is true or it isn't. One single event that defies it, defies the whole thing. Remember its definition I posted from SEP: one single possible future given a certain prior state. The moment you admit two possible futures for the same prior state, you admit that determinism is false, entirely.

This is the position of hard determinism, it is not the conclusion. This simply states one proposition put forward and does not conclude that it is correct. It defies billions of events that occur everyday and produces logical paradoxes which have no solution. Anyone who believed this and still held others morally accountable is morally insane, yet if they believe this and as the same site points out do so they are in fact self contradictory moral monsters.

Hard determinism is the position that free will is incompatible with determinism (and determinism is true). Soft determinism (compatibilism) is the position that free will is possible even if determinism is true.

They both talk of the same underlying determinism. If you strip the free will issue, there is no difference between hard and soft determinists.

No I most certainly do not think any of that is true, and I don't think the Stanford encyclopedia does either. They simply recorded what some may think.

What? Lol. They just defined what compatibilists must assume true and what they are up aganst in their defense that we can still be free under this premise. That is why it is made explicit in that section (about compatibilism.

I know what determinism says, the point is that what it says is not true.

Congratulations. The annihilating argument philosophers were looking for since millenia

I cannot produce a causal chain of events that produced millions upon millions of events. They can be factors in freewill but cannot determine it. IOW my decision to go to the store and then events being so obligating as to facilitate that desire which it it's self has no interest in is not accounted for through initial conditions alone.

I am not talking of factors. I am looking for an explicit cause of your decision, according to your views.The same exact conditions or factors can lead to different decisions (unless you believe that decisions and acting upon them are uniquely determined by this set of factors and you have no choice). So, what is this cause? Does it exist?

I don't think your equations cover what I am asking. It is not my claim that because determinism lacks intent it cannot produce a thing with intent. This might be confusing so take your time. To discuss intent we must grant intent exists, but if determinism does not contain intent then that intent is local. I.E. a person has intent. If you read legal codes you will find they mention human intent constantly and never mention natural intent as inherent to any larger system. So if I go to the store then it is my intention to do so, it is not determinisms intent that I actually go to the store. The intent is not contained or controlled by determinism, it is controlled by my freewill. When I see I am out of milk it is important to me to go get some more, determinism does not care, it does not want milk, it does not want anything. If I act on my desire for milk it is my desire that I actualize based upon my will, not determinism's. Reality gives every appearance that initial conditions led to the emergence of freewill, intent, and self determination. All the equations in the world can't change that. It is the theistic view that initial condition were set up by God's freewill to lead to our own freewill. That is what we see. Determinism cannot account for initial conditions, nor our own self interested autonomy no matter how many terms they butcher into meaning the exact opposite of what they originaly meant.

And this is exactly the whole point. For what we know (we don't know a lot about conscious decisions because we do not know much about consciousness, yet), we might be vastly more complex versions of Deep Blue. But still computational machines. And your choice of going to buy milk, when you see you don't have any, might have the same metaphysics of a temperature controller that pumps heat when its sensors measure a low temperature.

You probably do not agree with that. We are not machines, after all, are we? But how do you know? What justifies your singling out minds and how they work, from say other sort of machineries that we observe in the biological world, and for which we have a very popular unintentional process of "creation"?

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

I

Regardless you wanted me to find an example of compatabalism granting freewill. Here is one:
Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. Compatibilists believe freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.
Compatibilism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now, you are making things up.

When did I ever ask you to provide an example of compatibilism granting free will? Of course, they grant free will, being compatibilists.

What I asked is an example of comptibilism claiming that our free will is not subject to determinism. That is not determined. That determinism is momentarily suspended (whatever that means) when we instantiate and/or implement a will.

Free will and its determination are two different things. And they can run at the same time. At least for them

The irony of this is that now you are forced, if you are intellectually honest, to give more credibility to hard determinists than to compatibilists, if determinism were true.

I hope you did not say your friends you are a compatibilist .

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

And there is where the compatibilist would not agree with you. I might agree with you, but the compatibilist would definetely not.

They really believe that even if our will is detemined, it is still free, somehow, under certain external conditions. For the simple reason that they use a different notion of freedom Than yours.

Let's see if I can make an analogy. Consider Deep Blue, the great computer chess master. As long as you do not turn the power off, or destroy some of its memory banks, the computer is still FREE to decide what move to play next and play it. For a compatibilist this is all it is required to define freedom, even though she is perfectly aware that the result of the computer choice is determined by physics, the state of the computer memory and the program that it runs.

You will never agree with that because your concept of freedom goes beyond that, and that is why, from your vantage point, their position is absurd. But I suggest you really go through the SEP article and see what they really think before you judge. And take particular care to their definition of freedom.

Ciao

- viole

Like I said there are only two options.

1. Either like my definition says they grant two distinct things, freewill and determinism m and find them compatible. BTW that was not something I dreamed up, that was copied directly from a compatibility definition. It is not whether they agree with me or not, it is whether any individual compatibilists agrees with that definition or not. If he does then he has a coherent position which makes a meaningful argument about compatibility and uses correct terminology and common language use. IOW this position makes sense in every way and is meaningful. However since you and another intelligent poster think compatabalism actually defies the definitions of it that I have provided then perhaps the second position is correct.

2. This second possibility which you would argue for makes a mockery out of terminology, produces a meaningless argument, and eats it's self. It is such a horrific missuses of terminology and common sense I at one time could not bring myself to believe anyone would adopt it. However two intelligent posters claiming that this is in fact what they believe lead my to reconsider how silly a proposition can still be held by some. After considering that groups of people believe nothing created everything, natural infinites do exist despite none being known, and that life came from non-life, etc........ I have decided not to put anything down as to absurd and silly to be adopted by some groups. So again I say this position is a horrific mess of a position. It is so messy I hesitate to even begin pointing out how horrific a mess it really is, however I no longer think it so ridiculous that someone would not adopt it anyway.

So as far as your concerned I have granted your secondary point. Let me summarize this yet again and perhaps we can leave it here.

There are only two possibilities as far as what compatibilists believe.

1. The position I argued for which is that freewill and determinism are two distinct categories but two that some find compatible. This is a perfectly logical proposition which is in harmony with the terminology and which makes a meaningful claim about them. This is not my position but is the one I thought intelligent enough to be adopted, however that does not mean it is the correct option.

2. Or the second option which is what you argue for. This position while some may hold it is a logical absurdity which shipwrecks terminology, finds two identical things compatible which is meaningless, and which is a complete vacuous position. I find nothing coherent or meaningful about this option but that does not mean it is not adopted.

3. So I think they have or should have adopted a logically coherent and meaningful position however I may be right, you think they instead have adopted what is a meaningless, self contradictory and vacuous position, however you may be right.

4. However none of this has the slightest thing to do with whether freewill exists or whether hard determinism is true.

So we have a few choices as to how to proceed.

1. You can take my new position that perhaps your right and they do believe something as absurd as what you claim they do, as a satisfactory conclusion to what compatibility means.
B. we can then go back to the original issue of whether hard determinism is true.
C. Or we can instead discuss what is so absurd about your explanation of compatabalism.
2. Or you can still not find any satisfaction with my new softer stance about what compatabalism means and in that case I don't know what to do next.

Whether you agree or not do you understand what I am saying at this point?

 

[viole]

Like I said there are only two options.

1. Either like my definition says they grant two distinct things, freewill and determinism m and find them compatible. BTW that was not something I dreamed up, that was copied directly from a compatibility definition. It is not whether they agree with me or not, it is whether any individual compatibilists agrees with that definition or not. If he does then he has a coherent position which makes a meaningful argument about compatibility and uses correct terminology and common language use. IOW this position makes sense in every way and is meaningful. However since you and another intelligent poster think compatabalism actually defies the definitions of it that I have provided then perhaps the second position is correct.

2. This second possibility which you would argue for makes a mockery out of terminology, produces a meaningless argument, and eats it's self. It is such a horrific missuses of terminology and common sense I at one time could not bring myself to believe anyone would adopt it. However two intelligent posters claiming that this is in fact what they believe lead my to reconsider how silly a proposition can still be held by some. After considering that groups of people believe nothing created everything, natural infinites do exist despite none being known, and that life came from non-life, etc........ I have decided not to put anything down as to absurd and silly to be adopted by some groups. So again I say this position is a horrific mess of a position. It is so messy I hesitate to even begin pointing out how horrific a mess it really is, however I no longer think it so ridiculous that someone would not adopt it anyway.

So as far as your concerned I have granted your secondary point. Let me summarize this yet again and perhaps we can leave it here.

There are only two possibilities as far as what compatibilists believe.

1. The position I argued for which is that freewill and determinism are two distinct categories but two that some find compatible. This is a perfectly logical proposition which is in harmony with the terminology and which makes a meaningful claim about them. This is not my position but is the one I thought intelligent enough to be adopted, however that does not mean it is the correct option.

2. Or the second option which is what you argue for. This position while some may hold it is a logical absurdity which shipwrecks terminology, finds two identical things compatible which is meaningless, and which is a complete vacuous position. I find nothing coherent or meaningful about this option but that does not mean it is not adopted.

3. So I think they have or should have adopted a logically coherent and meaningful position however I may be right, you think they instead have adopted what is a meaningless, self contradictory and vacuous position, however you may be right.

4. However none of this has the slightest thing to do with whether freewill exists or whether hard determinism is true.

So we have a few choices as to how to proceed.

1. You can take my new position that perhaps your right and they do believe something as absurd as what you claim they do, as a satisfactory conclusion to what compatibility means.
B. we can then go back to the original issue of whether hard determinism is true.
C. Or we can instead discuss what is so absurd about your explanation of compatabalism.
2. Or you can still not find any satisfaction with my new softer stance about what compatabalism means and in that case I don't know what to do next.

Whether you agree or not do you understand what I am saying at this point?

Well, yes, I agree. With the possible exception that it is not MY interpretation of compatibilism. It is theirs.

But let's leave it at that.

To be quite honest, I don't know whether I am a hard determinist or a compatibilist. It all depends on definitions, as usual.
I know I am a determinist, but this is a premise that can have both solutions.

I feel free to decide things, although I am aware that every decision I take is determined by the low levels laws of physics and the state of a complex piece of machinery betweem my eyes. That would make me a compatibilist.

However, if we raise the bar to freedom so that includes freedom from physics, like you do, then I am a hard determinist.

The fact that I don't really care if Hitler was determined by physics to do what he did and was therefore directly responsible, would make me tend towards compatibilism. This is basically what our legal system is based upon. Judges do not really care about neuroscience or the many world interpretation of QM, as long as a person is not schizoid or crazy.

However, I can sense a slight difference in the legal system between countries with different views between free wills. i suspect that countries in which free will is really "free" tend more towards retialation or revenge. Consequences are death penalty and other things that I consider barbaric. Other countries, tend more towards real social correction. To make an example, that guy that killed so many innocents in Norway some years ago would have presumably been executed in Alabama. In Norway, it gets some years of prison (life sentences do not exist in Norway) in a cell that looks like a hotel room.

But I am digressing.

So, in order to avoid confusion, we should restrict the debate to the reality of determinism, independently from its embedding into moral responsability questions.

I hold the position that determinism is true. And I mean the classical definition: prior conditions dictate a unique future. My thesis is that you are forced to believe the same, if everything that begins to exist has a cause.

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

Now, you are making things up.

I am answering out of order because this one frustrated me. What are you talking about? I copied that directly from the link which I included. It is a definition and explanation of compatabalism. I did not make anything up.

When did I ever ask you to provide an example of compatibilism granting free will? Of course, they grant free will, being compatibilists.

Here:

So, while I wait for a not existing evidence that compatibilists accept suspension of determinism in at least some cases

It is all together right and proper to ask this. It is not my actual burden but it is a reasonable question. You say they think determinism explains everything, I sais that is not what compatibilists believe, that they believe actual freewill exists. So your asking me to show that is a reasonable question but not a practical one. So there is no harm in asking and it is a reasonable request. One I either have answered or will be unable to (I cannot look through everyone's explanation of their own personal compatabalism).

What I asked is an example of comptibilism claiming that our free will is not subject to determinism. That is not determined. That determinism is momentarily suspended (whatever that means) when we instantiate and/or implement a will.

This starting to sound like white noise to me. Words are starting to mean the exact opposite of what they traditionally mean or they mean nothing at all. As I said the reason I just could not (and reason I still find it very hard) believe your version of compatabalism is that version makes no sense. It is not a coherent idea. It is just like Hawking claiming gravity proves something can come from nothing. It is like being told a babies babbling is coherent and meaningful. In fact it is even worse. Babies words have no meanings to us, the words your definition uses do have meanings but the meanings in your definition defy those traditional meanings. It literally not just lacks meaning it defeats meaning. Now I have shown several things and I don't think I can grant anything further. Psychobabble does not just lack meaning, it destroys meaning.

1. I have said that based on the confidence (and that is all) of your and another poster's claim that compatabalism does not suspend determinism that that may be the case.
2. I have shown that if I instead wanted to show that compatibilists at least include the word freewill which assumes freedom from being determined, I can do so. In spite of that and because I do not have a dog in this race and do not care I was willing to concede that despite their using the word they do not grant it's traditional meaning and do believe what you say. However:
3. That immediately makes the position which you hold and which you say they hold into in incoherent black hole of psychobabble, which is so devoid of meaning and coherence I hate to even contemplate discussing it.

I was willing to assume what you claimed and said so many times. Why are we still discussing it?

Free will and its determination are two different things. And they can run at the same time. At least for them

From what I can tell your definition of determinism means what they mean by freewill has nothing to do with the terms traditional meaning and which only creates a hopeless confusion. I will grant they believe this confusing adultery of language and think they are saying something profound. I do not grant they actually are. They are redefining terms into something which lacks any meaning what ever that I can find.

The irony of this is that now you are forced, if you are intellectually honest, to give more credibility to hard determinists than to compatibilists, if determinism were true.

Given your definitions I would certainly give more credibility to hard determinists. I would regard whatever category grants actual freewill with the greatest credibility, those who deny freewill all together more coherence than any remaining category, and at the very end of the spectrum what you define as compatibilists. I think only the first group describes reality but can grant the second group with coherence if not accuracy, I can only grant the last group with butchering the argument and hopelessly confusing the issue into a smoking pile of incoherence and inaccuracy. If I had your definition in mind for compatabalism I would never have mentioned a world view so irrational. Given that definition I can not find a single coherent aspect of it.

I hope you did not say your friends you are a compatibilist .

Ciao

- viole

My friends do not know anything about stuff like this, and I do not have this type of conversation with them. I never ever have claimed to be a compatibilist given either of it's definitions, given yours I would have never mentioned it at all.

 

[viole]

I am answering out of order because this one frustrated me. What are you talking about? I copied that directly from the link which I included. It is a definition and explanation of compatabalism. I did not make anything up.

Here:
It is all together right and proper to ask this. It is not my actual burden but it is a reasonable question. You say they think determinism explains everything, I sais that is not what compatibilists believe, that they believe actual freewill exists. So your asking me to show that is a reasonable question but not a practical one. So there is no harm in asking and it is a reasonable request. One I either have answered or will be unable to (I cannot look through everyone's explanation of their own personal compatabalism).

This starting to sound like white noise to me. Words are starting to mean the exact opposite of what they traditionally mean or they mean nothing at all. As I said the reason I just could not (and reason I still find it very hard) believe your version of compatabalism is that version makes no sense. It is not a coherent idea. It is just like Hawking claiming gravity proves something can come from nothing. It is like being told a babies babbling is coherent and meaningful. In fact it is even worse. Babies words have no meanings to us, the words your definition uses do have meanings but the meanings in your definition defy those traditional meanings. It literally not just lacks meaning it defeats meaning. Now I have shown several things and I don't think I can grant anything further. Psychobabble does not just lack meaning, it destroys meaning.

1. I have said that based on the confidence (and that is all) of your and another poster's claim that compatabalism does not suspend determinism that that may be the case.
2. I have shown that if I instead wanted to show that compatibilists at least include the word freewill which assumes freedom from being determined, I can do so. In spite of that and because I do not have a dog in this race and do not care I was willing to concede that despite their using the word they do not grant it's traditional meaning and do believe what you say. However:
3. That immediately makes the position which you hold and which you say they hold into in incoherent black hole of psychobabble, which is so devoid of meaning and coherence I hate to even contemplate discussing it.

I was willing to assume what you claimed and said so many times. Why are we still discussing it?

From what I can tell your definition of determinism means what they mean by freewill has nothing to do with the terms traditional meaning and which only creates a hopeless confusion. I will grant they believe this confusing adultery of language and think they are saying something profound. I do not grant they actually are. They are redefining terms into something which lacks any meaning what ever that I can find.

Given your definitions I would certainly give more credibility to hard determinists. I would regard whatever category grants actual freewill with the greatest credibility, those who deny freewill all together more coherence than any remaining category, and at the very end of the spectrum what you define as compatibilists. I think only the first group describes reality but can grant the second group with coherence if not accuracy, I can only grant the last group with butchering the argument and hopelessly confusing the issue into a smoking pile of incoherence and inaccuracy. If I had your definition in mind for compatabalism I would never have mentioned a world view so irrational. Given that definition I can not find a single coherent aspect of it.

My friends do not know anything about stuff like this, and I do not have this type of conversation with them. I never ever have claimed to be a compatibilist given either of it's definitions, given yours I would have never mentioned it at all.

Well, again, it is not my definition. Well named got it too. So, I wonder what is so complicated.

It is what compatibilists hold, as irrational as it might seem to you. And that is all in the SEP article as well. Their defense is quite articulated, and difficult to follow, but it NEVER deviates whatsoever from the fact that our will is still determined by the underying laws of physics, and yet still free, in a sense. Unless you have evidence of the contrary.

And that is what I asked. Philosophical evidence, from the SEP or whatever article of your choice, that it is only my view, and not theirs.

I think it is pretty obvious that you totally misunderstood their position, I am afraid.

Ciao

- viole