Compatibilism is impossible

[Trajk Logik]

I said one mental state leads to another mental state following the laws of nature.

But which laws of nature show this to be the case?

To the best of our knowledge, there is only one sort of laws of nature.

Do you have any evidence for this claim?

Physics.

Can you show me where physics says that physical states lead into a mental states? I looked through my college physics text book and I didn't see anything. Maybe you have an internet link or something to show what it is you're talking about?

That is the problem: How can you decide to do otherwise if there is only one chain of causality?

If you could have chosen otherwise, then why didn't you?

Because I didn't freely decide otherwise.

But what exactly does that mean? For instance, what was your reasons for starting this thread? Why didn't you choose to not start this thread? If you can't provide a reason, then maybe you're not making conscious decisions. You're making unconscious decisions.

You had to have a reason why you made one choice rather than another. If you didn't then it was an unconscious, or sub-conscious decision rather than a conscious one. If you did not make a conscious decision then it might be possible that you didn't make a decision at all and it wouldn't make any sense to say that you had any freedom in the first place.

I am talking about conscious decisions.

Then we're talking about decisions for which you had reasons that you aware consciously aware of.

The point is whether I could do otherwise, don't start this thread. This means that we are dealing with options when a decision is needed. This means that a chain of causality forks at the point when a decision is needed. The system cannot evolve deterministically in such a situation given the definition of determinism. Therefore, an agent with the capacity to decide is needed.

It sounds to me that you are speaking in deterministic terms in describing what is "needed" for something else to happen.

Just because you are aware of options does not mean that you could have chosen otherwise. It just means that you are aware of them. You didn't go with those other options for a reason.

Decision-making is a process. It takes time. You have an idea of what you want to accomplish and then you think of options to accomplish it. You filter out the options in favor of the one that you believe would be the best. As such it is a causal process like any other.

Could we agree that options are real in the sense that I can choose any of them?

Options are real in that they are ideas that you can ponder, but not necessarily choose given some set of circumstances. For instance, say your child is drowning in a lake. While discussing this situation in a philosophy forum, you may say you have the choice to go get ice cream, but in the actual situation would that choice come to mind, and even if it did would you choose that option? Would you have reasons for making that choice or not?

I think we should be trying to iron out the actual decision-making process. How do you make choices? What does that process look like? What makes you choose one over another? To say that you can choose any of them, what does that mean exactly?

So you are not free.

What does it mean to be "free"?

I equate freedom with options. The more options you have, the more freedom. Why would a determinist, like myself, fight for freedom (options)? Because more options allows me to deterministically make better choices. More options gives me more information to make the best decisions. Hiding options from me would be limiting my freedom and preventing me from making better decisions. As I have already said, we can only make decisions based on current information and the current situation. So by adding information gives me more options that can affect the deterministic process of my decision-making, which typically leads to better decisions being made.

No, free will is something more than options. Free will is about you being able to choose any option.

Again, we need to lay out the process of making decisions to know if that statement makes any sense.

Well, there cannot be any reason if you cannot forecast the market. You might lose or gain money which is not clear at the point of decision.

Just because you cannot predict the future does not mean you can't make decisions using the information you have now. You can't predict the future for anything yet we still have reasons for our decisions. You use the best information you have at the moment, which may be the advice of someone else or the track record of a particular stock, or the current state of the company and it's profits. There are many reasons to point to in making a decision like this or we wouldn't have people making millions of dollars doing it and making a living off giving advice for others to do it.

I didn't say that you cannot decide if you cannot foresee the market. In fact, the free decision comes into play when you cannot forecast the market.

Then what you're saying is a lack of information is what creates a free decision. So if you didn't know anything then you would be ultimately free to make any decision? I don't see how that works.

Well, people define free-will differently, some of them mix free will with will.

Will is defined as a desire or wish. Freedom is defined as the ability to act without control. So free will would be the ability to act without control to realize some desire or dream. But the fact is that we are always limited by time and information. Our choices are limited by the amount of information you have and the amount of time you have before the decision becomes irrelevant. You may have other peoples welfare to think of. There will be options that will not be valid, which is why you didn't choose them and chose another that did. So, defining free-will in this way is incompatible with determinism and free will in this instance would still exist, but as an illusion. Illusions exist, even in a deterministic world. They happen for deterministic reasons, like in how light behaves and how a mind interprets it's behavior.

In defining freedom as having access to more information that would then determine better choices, then free will of this kind would be compatible with determinism.

The bold part is not the definition of free will. We have control over our decisions all the time.

I was defining freedom, not free will in that bold part, and what I meant is that it is the ability to act without coercion.

What does it mean to say that we have control over our decisions all the time? Sure, we make our own decisions. No one can make our decisions for us as they are not us with the same information as us. The question is whether you could have chosen otherwise and why didn't you.

[Trajk Logik]

Literally just about everything

I am afraid that I cannot see that. Would you mind to elaborate?

You were talking about how it seems remarkably coincidental that our consciousness seems to match what our subconscious chose, according to some model. You even asked, what if it didn't match, what would happen then?

What I posted is a direct response to both of those things. It proves that our conscious mind can see a decision, and INVENT a reason why it made that decision. It's a natural thing our conscious minds do. So it's not a coincidence that our actions seem to match our conscious choices - our consciousness will bend itself to make it match what our bodies do. Even when it wasn't actually the source of that act.

But the experiment doesn't say anything about subconscious vs conscious decisions. Consciousness has been described as a social action filter in that it filters our instinctive (subconscious) decisions in social environments so we are not acting out instinctive behaviors that would harm our social status. We have certain instinctive urges thanks to the primitive parts of our brains, and lower animals act out those instinctive urges without any filter. Humans have an extra module that provides some fault-tolerance in social environments, or in other fast-changing environments in which the evolved instinctive behavior would not be a valid response.

In addition, why would we invent a reason why it made the decision if it can see the decision, which includes it's reasons? Decision-making is a type of reasoning.

The cerebral cortex is unique to humans and is described as the part of the brain that involves high-order thinking, information processing, perception and consciousness.

[Flannel Jesus]

I am afraid that I cannot see that. Would you mind to elaborate?

You were talking about how it seems remarkably coincidental that our consciousness seems to match what our subconscious chose, according to some model. You even asked, what if it didn't match, what would happen then?

What I posted is a direct response to both of those things. It proves that our conscious mind can see a decision, and INVENT a reason why it made that decision. It's a natural thing our conscious minds do. So it's not a coincidence that our actions seem to match our conscious choices - our consciousness will bend itself to make it match what our bodies do. Even when it wasn't actually the source of that act.

But the experiment doesn't say anything about subconscious vs conscious decisions.

It doesn't have to. It proves human consciousness is capable of inventing reasons out of the blue for why it must have done something. That's what's relevant here. It's capable of that when the source of the decision was subconscious, just like it's capable of doing it when the source of the decision was an entirely disconnected hemisphere.

Part of consciousness experience is an invented history.

[Trajk Logik]

You were talking about how it seems remarkably coincidental that our consciousness seems to match what our subconscious chose, according to some model. You even asked, what if it didn't match, what would happen then?

What I posted is a direct response to both of those things. It proves that our conscious mind can see a decision, and INVENT a reason why it made that decision. It's a natural thing our conscious minds do. So it's not a coincidence that our actions seem to match our conscious choices - our consciousness will bend itself to make it match what our bodies do. Even when it wasn't actually the source of that act.

But the experiment doesn't say anything about subconscious vs conscious decisions.

It doesn't have to. It proves human consciousness is capable of inventing reasons out of the blue for why it must have done something. That's what's relevant here. It's capable of that when the source of the decision was subconscious, just like it's capable of doing it when the source of the decision was an entirely disconnected hemisphere.

Part of consciousness experience is an invented history.

It does have to to support your point. It doesn't say which side was conscious and which side wasn't.

As I pointed out, the cerebral cortex is affiliated with consciousness, which both hemispheres have.

Not to mention it's strange that the experiment says both hemispheres could see all the cards, but not both pictures?

How do we know that you just didn't invent your own history involving your understanding of the experiment?

[Flannel Jesus]

If you can't see the relevance after all I've said, I unfortunately don't think there's any sequence of words I could say that could show you. I only hope it's more apparent to other readers.

[bahman]

Literally just about everything

I am afraid that I cannot see that. Would you mind to elaborate?

You were talking about how it seems remarkably coincidental that our consciousness seems to match what our subconscious chose, according to some model. You even asked, what if it didn't match, what would happen then?

What I posted is a direct response to both of those things. It proves that our conscious mind can see a decision, and INVENT a reason why it made that decision. It's a natural thing our conscious minds do. So it's not a coincidence that our actions seem to match our conscious choices - our consciousness will bend itself to make it match what our bodies do. Even when it wasn't actually the source of that act.

I think we are dealing with two conscious minds in these cases rather than a conscious mind and a subconscious mind.

[bahman]

I asked if a completely free decision would be one not influenced by any unconscious factors, and you answered, "no", but what you then went on to say sounds like, "yes". Either you misunderstood the question, or I the answer.

I answered your concern in the next comment: "I am aware of those studies but I think that one cannot generalize this problem to all sorts of decision-making. I found it ironic to assign decisions to the subconscious mind while the conscious awareness of decisions always coincides with what you choose. I mean what if you consciously decide to do one thing and your subconscious mind decides to do otherwise?"

Although I am curious about just how much more of a muddle this could become, I'm not going to pursue it any further.

OK, as you wish.

I don't think it works like that. I think the decision would be made on an unconscious level, and then your consciousness simply informed of it afterwards, but being under the mistaken impression that it was responsible for it.

What is the use of the conscious mind then? How subconscious mind decide when there is a conflict of interest in choosing one option in a situation?

If I could answer those questions, I would probably consider such a forum as this beneath me, and so would not be here to answer them, anyway.

OK, so you admit that you don't know.

Do you have the ability to decide to gamble?

I'm sure I could arrive at such a decision, but I wouldn't be able to identify all the factors that led to it.

What is the outcome of a gamble? You don't know. As simple as that. Yet, you can do it.

[Flannel Jesus]

I think we are dealing with two conscious minds in these cases rather than a conscious mind and a subconscious mind.

The example is meant to illustrate the conscious brains propensity to take responsibility for, and invent reasons for, decisions it didn't even make. Surely you see how that's relevant even when it comes to decisions made by the subconscious.

[Atla]

The whole topic is obviously just a conflation fallacy where we take two unrelated issues, determinism vs indeterminism and psychological/everyday life freedom vs restrictedness. And treat them as the same issue.

It says 59% of philosophers are compatibilists, which means that they are either entirely unconcerned with science (which today can be seen as invalid imo) or their stance is based on this conflation fallacy (which is also invalid imo).

[Flannel Jesus]

It says 59% of philosophers are compatibilists, which means that they are either entirely unconcerned with science (which today can be seen as invalid imo) or their stance is based on this conflation fallacy (which is also invalid imo).

Why does it mean those 59% of philosophers are entirely unconcerned with science?

[Atla]

It says 59% of philosophers are compatibilists, which means that they are either entirely unconcerned with science (which today can be seen as invalid imo) or their stance is based on this conflation fallacy (which is also invalid imo).

Why does it mean those 59% of philosophers are entirely unconcerned with science?

I mean some of them may use the word determinism, but it has nothing to do with the determinism from science. And if you ignore something that basic, you're pretty much ignoring science in general.

[Harbal]

If I could answer those questions, I would probably consider such a forum as this beneath me, and so would not be here to answer them, anyway.

OK, so you admit that you don't know.

Yes, I do admit it; you should try it yourself some time.

I'm sure I could arrive at such a decision, but I wouldn't be able to identify all the factors that led to it.

What is the outcome of a gamble? You don't know. As simple as that. Yet, you can do it.

So where does that get us?

[Flannel Jesus]

It says 59% of philosophers are compatibilists, which means that they are either entirely unconcerned with science (which today can be seen as invalid imo) or their stance is based on this conflation fallacy (which is also invalid imo).

Why does it mean those 59% of philosophers are entirely unconcerned with science?

I mean some of them may use the word determinism, but it has nothing to do with the determinism from science. And if you ignore something that basic, you're pretty much ignoring science in general.

I feel like there are a lot of things you're leaving unstated that make it look like large leaps to me, I'm not following. In what way do compatibilist philosophers use the word determinism that makes you say what you're saying?

[bahman]

But which laws of nature show this to be the case?

To the best of our knowledge, there is only one sort of laws of nature.

Do you have any evidence for this claim?

Physics.

Can you show me where physics says that physical states lead into a mental states? I looked through my college physics text book and I didn't see anything. Maybe you have an internet link or something to show what it is you're talking about?

I didn't say that physical state leads to mental state. To be clear physical state in the brain is called the mental state.

If you could have chosen otherwise, then why didn't you?

Because I didn't freely decide otherwise.

But what exactly does that mean? For instance, what was your reasons for starting this thread? Why didn't you choose to not start this thread? If you can't provide a reason, then maybe you're not making conscious decisions. You're making unconscious decisions.

Yes, there was a reason why I started this thread as such I don't call my decision free. There are however free decisions as well. What is the reason for them? Nothing! How they could be free if there is a reason behind them?

You had to have a reason why you made one choice rather than another. If you didn't then it was an unconscious, or sub-conscious decision rather than a conscious one. If you did not make a conscious decision then it might be possible that you didn't make a decision at all and it wouldn't make any sense to say that you had any freedom in the first place.

I am talking about conscious decisions.

Then we're talking about decisions for which you had reasons that you aware consciously aware of.

There is not necessarily a reason behind my conscious decision. It is not a free decision if there is a reason for it. Otherwise, it is free.

It sounds to me that you are speaking in deterministic terms in describing what is "needed" for something else to happen.

Just because you are aware of options does not mean that you could have chosen otherwise. It just means that you are aware of them. You didn't go with those other options for a reason.

Decision-making is a process. It takes time. You have an idea of what you want to accomplish and then you think of options to accomplish it. You filter out the options in favor of the one that you believe would be the best. As such it is a causal process like any other.

Could we agree that options are real in the sense that I can choose any of them?

Options are real in that they are ideas that you can ponder, but not necessarily choose given some set of circumstances. For instance, say your child is drowning in a lake. While discussing this situation in a philosophy forum, you may say you have the choice to go get ice cream, but in the actual situation would that choice come to mind, and even if it did would you choose that option? Would you have reasons for making that choice or not?

I think we should be trying to iron out the actual decision-making process. How do you make choices? What does that process look like? What makes you choose one over another? To say that you can choose any of them, what does that mean exactly?

Non-free decisions are a sort of decision in which we process information, weight options, and choose one of them. There is no process involved in a free decision as options have the same weight.

What does it mean to be "free"?

I equate freedom with options. The more options you have, the more freedom. Why would a determinist, like myself, fight for freedom (options)? Because more options allows me to deterministically make better choices. More options gives me more information to make the best decisions. Hiding options from me would be limiting my freedom and preventing me from making better decisions. As I have already said, we can only make decisions based on current information and the current situation. So by adding information gives me more options that can affect the deterministic process of my decision-making, which typically leads to better decisions being made.

No, free will is something more than options. Free will is about you being able to choose any option.

Again, we need to lay out the process of making decisions to know if that statement makes any sense.

There is no process involved in making a free decision, the process cannot take you anywhere since options have the same weight.

Just because you cannot predict the future does not mean you can't make decisions using the information you have now. You can't predict the future for anything yet we still have reasons for our decisions. You use the best information you have at the moment, which may be the advice of someone else or the track record of a particular stock, or the current state of the company and it's profits. There are many reasons to point to in making a decision like this or we wouldn't have people making millions of dollars doing it and making a living off giving advice for others to do it.

I didn't say that you cannot decide if you cannot foresee the market. In fact, the free decision comes into play when you cannot forecast the market.

Then what you're saying is a lack of information is what creates a free decision.

No, I am saying that the lack of enough information for making a decision forces a free agent to make a free decision.

So if you didn't know anything then you would be ultimately free to make any decision? I don't see how that works.

You are faced with two chains of causality you don't know where each might lead to. You just cause a chain of causality when you choose one of the options. There is no reason for that in other words nothing causes you to choose this option rather than another option.

Will is defined as a desire or wish. Freedom is defined as the ability to act without control. So free will would be the ability to act without control to realize some desire or dream. But the fact is that we are always limited by time and information. Our choices are limited by the amount of information you have and the amount of time you have before the decision becomes irrelevant. You may have other peoples welfare to think of. There will be options that will not be valid, which is why you didn't choose them and chose another that did. So, defining free-will in this way is incompatible with determinism and free will in this instance would still exist, but as an illusion. Illusions exist, even in a deterministic world. They happen for deterministic reasons, like in how light behaves and how a mind interprets it's behavior.

In defining freedom as having access to more information that would then determine better choices, then free will of this kind would be compatible with determinism.

The bold part is not the definition of free will. We have control over our decisions all the time.

I was defining freedom, not free will in that bold part, and what I meant is that it is the ability to act without coercion.

What does it mean to say that we have control over our decisions all the time? Sure, we make our own decisions. No one can make our decisions for us as they are not us with the same information as us. The question is whether you could have chosen otherwise and why didn't you.

By control, I mean that we are not subjected to reasons when it comes to decisions. We have the ability to choose one option without having a specific reason.

[bahman]

If I could answer those questions, I would probably consider such a forum as this beneath me, and so would not be here to answer them, anyway.

OK, so you admit that you don't know.

Yes, I do admit it; you should try it yourself some time.

Yes, I admit that I know everything!

I'm sure I could arrive at such a decision, but I wouldn't be able to identify all the factors that led to it.

What is the outcome of a gamble? You don't know. As simple as that. Yet, you can do it.

So where does that get us?

It means that the free decision exists.