compatibilism

[Immanuel Can]

It seems fairly obvious that the brain is more than the properties and characteristics of individual atoms.

Yes, we agree on that. Determinists would have to deny it. They would have to say it only "seems" that way to us, but that the deeper truth is that the so-called "mind" is just an "epiphenomenon" of the material brain. Thus, that "mind" is not actually explicatory of anything in a causal chain.

So the brain must be an example of emergence.

That doesn't follow. It presumes a developmental narrative we do not have. "Emergence" is not observable, not reproducible in a lab, and not testable now. Consciousness is testable, now, after the fact; but its manner of origin is not. So IF mind somehow "emerged" from brain development, we have no idea HOW such a thing could be possible.

Thus, even from a purely Materialist point of view, "emergence" is a non-explanation. It doesn't actually tell us what the process was: it's just a label for "we don't know how this thing happened, if it did."

[phyllo]

Yes, we agree on that. Determinists would have to deny it. They would have to say it only "seems" that way to us, but that the deeper truth is that the so-called "mind" is just an "epiphenomenon" of the material brain. Thus, that "mind" is not actually explicatory of anything in a causal chain.

I wrote "brain". I didn't write "mind".

A brain is some arrangement of atoms which can process information and make decisions.

No determinist problem with that, is there?

That doesn't follow. It presumes a developmental narrative we do not have. "Emergence" is not observable, not reproducible in a lab, and not testable now. Consciousness is testable, now, after the fact; but its manner of origin is not. So IF mind somehow "emerged" from brain development, we have no idea HOW such a thing could be possible.

Again, I didn't write "mind".

And science has not problems observing "emergence". Here is just one example:

Emergence refers to the existence or formation of collective behaviors — what parts of a system do together that they would not do alone.

In describing collective behaviors, emergence refers to how collective properties arise from the properties of parts, how behavior at a larger scale arises from the detailed structure, behavior and relationships at a finer scale. For example, cells that make up a muscle display the emergent property of working together to produce the muscle's overall structure and movement. A water molecule has emergent properties that arise out of the properties of oxygen and hydrogen atoms. Many water molecules together form river flows and ocean waves. Trees, other plants and animals form a forest.

https://necsi.edu/emergence

Thus, even from a purely Materialist point of view, "emergence" is a non-explanation. It doesn't actually tell us what the process was: it's just a label for "we don't know how this thing happened, if it did."

We don't know lots of stuff. That doesn't mean that the thing doesn't exist or that there is no emergence.

[Immanuel Can]

Yes, we agree on that. Determinists would have to deny it. They would have to say it only "seems" that way to us, but that the deeper truth is that the so-called "mind" is just an "epiphenomenon" of the material brain. Thus, that "mind" is not actually explicatory of anything in a causal chain.

I wrote "brain". I didn't write "mind".

A brain is just a piece of meat, if there's no mind in it. Even corpses still have brains.

A brain is some arrangement of atoms which can process information and make decisions.

The brain may be defined as "a particular arrangement of atoms." But so may a goat, an aqualung, and an armchair. So that description doesn't tell us enough.

But yes, in one sense, the "brain" is the material entity. However, its ability to "process information" and "make decisions" is clear evidence of a "mind," not just a "brain."

No determinist problem with that, is there?

For the Determinist, the "brain" is all there is. The "mind" is the epiphenomenal part, the "emergent" part. But there's no Deterministic description of how the two differ: the assumption is that, whatever the "mind" actually is, when we dig down, all we are going to find is that it's a quirky kind of operation of "brain," but not different from "brain."

That doesn't follow. It presumes a developmental narrative we do not have. "Emergence" is not observable, not reproducible in a lab, and not testable now. Consciousness is testable, now, after the fact; but its manner of origin is not. So IF mind somehow "emerged" from brain development, we have no idea HOW such a thing could be possible.

Again, I didn't write "mind".

And science has not problems observing "emergence".

It depends on what is "emerging." "Emergence" is really such a general term that it's unhelpful descriptively.

Here is just one example:

Emergence refers to the existence or formation of collective behaviors — what parts of a system do together that they would not do alone.

In describing collective behaviors, emergence refers to how collective properties arise from the properties of parts, how behavior at a larger scale arises from the detailed structure, behavior and relationships at a finer scale. For example, cells that make up a muscle display the emergent property of working together to produce the muscle's overall structure and movement. A water molecule has emergent properties that arise out of the properties of oxygen and hydrogen atoms. Many water molecules together form river flows and ocean waves. Trees, other plants and animals form a forest.

https://necsi.edu/emergence

This illustrates the point well. One can apply the word "emergence" to practically anything, from plants to rivers. But this is quite a different thing than when we talk about the mind-brain problem, because unlike the mind-brain problem, the "emergence" in this case is not simply more-of-the-same, as when a "river" forms an "ocean," or as when an "oak" emerges out of an "acorn." Rather, consciousness is a totally different, totally unexpected property that is said to "emerge" suddenly, completely, and totally differently from the alleged substrate from which it is said to "emerge." Thus, to say that "mind" "emerges" from matter is to say that something totally unlike the material from which it "emerges" suddenly "emerged" -- complete, ready to do its work, and somehow not comprised of the same materials from which it "emerged."

Think of it this way. At one time, the universe, we are told, was composed of nothing but basic elements...like hydrogen molecules, or oxygen molecules, or quark-gluon plasma, all floating around. None of that was "mind," we are told. (And we can still see that it wouldn't be, too: the hydrogen and oxygen we find today has no "mind" of its own, either. So if basic elements are all there was, then nothing was sentient: nothing had "mind.") Then there was an explosion, called "the Big Bang," and, after a long time, life "emerged." We don't know how, we can't reproduce it in a lab...despite having tried desperately to do so, for many years now...and we had no instruments in place to detect this alleged "emergence." So it's just an assumption, a "reading-backward" of events, a sort of speculative deduction.

Likewise, the mind-brain problem. The "emergence" explanation tells us that when the brain in the life that miraculously "emerged" from basic, non-sentient elements developed to an unspecifiable level of sophistication, then "mind" had to have just "emerged" from that lump of meat in the cranium. It just "popped out," so to speak, unexpectedly, not gradually, conscious and ready-to-go, as the climax of some sort of assumedly-material rearrangement we have to admit we just don't understand.

That's the "emergence" theory, specifically as it relates to the mind-brain problem. As you can see, it's not about rivers and trees, and not about things that "emerge" gradually, predictably, or of-the-same-order as the thing from which it is said to have "emerged."

Thus, even from a purely Materialist point of view, "emergence" is a non-explanation. It doesn't actually tell us what the process was: it's just a label for "we don't know how this thing happened, if it did."

We don't know lots of stuff. That doesn't mean that the thing doesn't exist or that there is no emergence.

No, but it means a couple of other things. It means we have no explanation of how "emergence" could even happen. It means we have no certainty it even could happen. It means we're thrown back on a kind of magical thinking: that when brains just get to a certain stage of sophistications, "minds" pop out of them, like a jack-in-the-box.

To know that the "emergence" explanation of mind-brain could work, we'd first have to know how life could "emerge" from inert matter. Then we would have to know how life could become "sentient." Then we would have to know how sentient life of a low order (paramecia, fish, dogs) could suddenly generate higher-order consciousness as we see it in humans, such as self-awareness, the ability to conceptualize and abstract, the propensity to moralize, the capacity to do mathematics, and the higher intellectual functions of reason and logic...and the ability to ask and consider philosophical questions.

And none of that do we know.

So for the moment, the "emergence" explanation has nothing to it. And to speculate, "Well, one day it will," as, say, the Eliminativists do, is merely to prophesy, not to do science.

[Belinda]

How free are you?

Depends on what level you're asking, and then on some ultimate metaphysical level, I don't know.

I'm not quite sure what this had to do with my post.

I guess you like to be free to choose, and not have something or somebody else choosing what you do. As is shown by events due to climate change and wars, choices are limited by circumstances. E.g. If you are a soldier and kill people so you must do so. If you are desperate for a drink when stuck in a dry desert, you are forced to drink what you can even brackish water with germs in it. How is free will even possible. When indeed are you ever completely free to choose.

Never . Therefore there is nothing for determinism to be compatible with.

[Immanuel Can]

How free are you?

Depends on what level you're asking, and then on some ultimate metaphysical level, I don't know.

When indeed are you ever completely free to choose.

Never . Therefore there is nothing for determinism to be compatible with.

That's actually not a good argument, I'm afraid. It's premised on a misunderstanding of what is meant by "free will."

If "free" meant something like, "free of all motives, considerations, influences, limitations, forces, and so on," then you'd have a point. However, it doesn't.

In truth, it does not imply "absolutely devoid of contributing factors," or "made without any reference at all to the facts and circumstances," or "not influenced at all by prior forces." No proponent of free will I have ever found uses it that way. And I think you'll find that all it really implies is that, when the final decision is made, it is arbitrated by "will," not finally by those prior facts, influences, contributors or forces. They remain, but they do not "make" or "make up" the decision in the place of the person's "will."

So "free will" is a very modest claim, not at all the suggestion that human beings can make decisions from a position of being "completely free," as you suggest. It just means that the will, not the circumstances, is the final abitrator of the choice.

Ask yourself this question: did Stephen Hawking have "free will"?

You remember him, right? Crippled by Lou Gehrig's Disease, in a wheel chair, unable to speak without machine assistance, unable to take himself to the bathroom, or to make food for himself...

In the sense "free will" proponents use the term, the answer would be "Yes: he had free will." And their reasoning would be that he still had a mind that could decide what he wanted to do, despite the limitations of his options and his lack of physical means.

However, I still agree with your conclusion: that there's no compatibliity possible between any element of "will" and Determinism. Not for your suggested reason, though.

[Atla]

"In philosophy, Occam's razor...is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony (Latin: lex parsimoniae). Attributed to William of Ockham, a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian, it is frequently cited as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity", although Occam never used these exact words. Popularly, the principle is sometimes paraphrased as "The simplest explanation is usually the best one." wiki

Again -- click -- this is one of those expressions posters here will sometimes use in order to encompass what they deem to be the next best thing to objectivism. Or, perhaps, the next best thing to God?

In other words, what do you know, their own understanding of determinism and compatibilism reflect the simplest explanation!

On the other hand, if we start with the assumption that the human brain itself is just more matter, and that all matter obeys particular "immutable laws", why not conclude that the simplest explanation is determinism.

If you have a better tool for philosophy than Occam's razor then present it. If you have no tool then philosophy is pointless because you have infinitely many explanations/takes for anything, and they are all equally wrong.

And of course there's no response to this one, there never is. Either you're using a worse tool than Occam's razor to rank philosophical speculations. Or you're using no tool at all to rank philosophical speculations, in which case everything you say in philosophy is 100% pointless, so why say anything at all.

But someone who strongly rejects objectivism seems to be using some kind of tool. Wonder what it is.

[Belinda]

Depends on what level you're asking, and then on some ultimate metaphysical level, I don't know.

When indeed are you ever completely free to choose.

Never . Therefore there is nothing for determinism to be compatible with.

That's actually not a good argument, I'm afraid. It's premised on a misunderstanding of what is meant by "free will."

If "free" meant something like, "free of all motives, considerations, influences, limitations, forces, and so on," then you'd have a point. However, it doesn't.

In truth, it does not imply "absolutely devoid of contributing factors," or "made without any reference at all to the facts and circumstances," or "not influenced at all by prior forces." No proponent of free will I have ever found uses it that way. And I think you'll find that all it really implies is that, when the final decision is made, it is arbitrated by "will," not finally by those prior facts, influences, contributors or forces. They remain, but they do not "make" or "make up" the decision in the place of the person's "will."

So "free will" is a very modest claim, not at all the suggestion that human beings can make decisions from a position of being "completely free," as you suggest. It just means that the will, not the circumstances, is the final abitrator of the choice.

Ask yourself this question: did Stephen Hawking have "free will"?

You remember him, right? Crippled by Lou Gehrig's Disease, in a wheel chair, unable to speak without machine assistance, unable to take himself to the bathroom, or to make food for himself...

In the sense "free will" proponents use the term, the answer would be "Yes: he had free will." And their reasoning would be that he still had a mind that could decide what he wanted to do, despite the limitations of his options and his lack of physical means.

However, I still agree with your conclusion: that there's no compatibliity possible between any element of "will" and Determinism. Not for your suggested reason, though.

'Let thy will be done' is voluntarism not freedom and responsibility. If I remember right, the story of Job tells how he ,in the end , voluntarily gives the ultimate choice and judgement to God . Job was therefore not a very free sort of man.

I think of Stephen Hawking as an example of someone who had or was a strong, what used to be called soul. Actually, in the context of freedom 'soul' is a better word than 'will'. It is soul not will that frees a man from circumstances.

[Immanuel Can]

'Let thy will be done' is voluntarism not freedom and responsibility.

Sure it is. It's a voluntary declaration. Nobody forces it on anyone. Christ encouraged those who chose to be His followers to choose also to adopt that attitude; but whether they would or not, that was up to them. And you can certainly see that Judas and John made different decisions, even after His words.

If I remember right, the story of Job tells how he ,in the end , voluntarily gives the ultimate choice and judgement to God .

You don't have it quite right, actually. What Job realizes is that only God is wise enough to know why suffering happens. And he voluntarily agrees with it. But his friends have free will, too: and they don't speak truth concerning God. And it nearly costs them everything, except God agrees to forgive them if Job does. And Job does.

Lots of free will being exercised there.

I think of Stephen Hawking as an example of someone who had or was a strong, what used to be called soul. Actually, in the context of freedom 'soul' is a better word than 'will'. It is soul not will that frees a man from circumstances.

Well, that's a semantic difference, but no conceptual difference. Call it "soul" or "will," and the outcome is the same: he had charge of it.

Now, Stephen Hawking had very, very limited options: much more limited, in many ways, than you or me. So you and I have far more of that "free" will than he ever did. Yet he also had freedoms, including the freedom of Job...the right to declare whom he would believe, and what principles he would follow in his life.

And if he chose wrongly, then he knows it now. But nobody could say he had no free will.

[Iwannaplato]

I guess you like to be free to choose,

Me, personally or people in general?

and not have something or somebody else choosing what you do. As is shown by events due to climate change and wars, choices are limited by circumstances. E.g. If you are a soldier and kill people so you must do so. If you are desperate for a drink when stuck in a dry desert, you are forced to drink what you can even brackish water with germs in it. How is free will even possible. When indeed are you ever completely free to choose.

Do you think I believe in free will or determinism

Never . Therefore there is nothing for determinism to be compatible with.

So, a soldier cannot refuse to fight and put down his or her weapons? I'm not particularly an advocate for libertarian free will, but in each of your examples one could opt not to do what you say one must. Also, those are very specific, and extreme situations. There are many situations that are not like those. I can't see where you've demonstrated there is no free will, even in those situations, let alone in general.

And I'm still not sure what it has to do with what you quoted from me two posts back.

[Belinda]

'Let thy will be done' is voluntarism not freedom and responsibility.

Sure it is. It's a voluntary declaration. Nobody forces it on anyone. Christ encouraged those who chose to be His followers to choose also to adopt that attitude; but whether they would or not, that was up to them. And you can certainly see that Judas and John made different decisions, even after His words.

If I remember right, the story of Job tells how he ,in the end , voluntarily gives the ultimate choice and judgement to God .

You don't have it quite right, actually. What Job realizes is that only God is wise enough to know why suffering happens. And he voluntarily agrees with it. But his friends have free will, too: and they don't speak truth concerning God. And it nearly costs them everything, except God agrees to forgive them if Job does. And Job does.

Lots of free will being exercised there.

I think of Stephen Hawking as an example of someone who had or was a strong, what used to be called soul. Actually, in the context of freedom 'soul' is a better word than 'will'. It is soul not will that frees a man from circumstances.

Well, that's a semantic difference, but no conceptual difference. Call it "soul" or "will," and the outcome is the same: he had charge of it.

Now, Stephen Hawking had very, very limited options: much more limited, in many ways, than you or me. So you and I have far more of that "free" will than he ever did. Yet he also had freedoms, including the freedom of Job...the right to declare whom he would believe, and what principles he would follow in his life.

And if he chose wrongly, then he knows it now. But nobody could say he had no free will.

The trouble with voluntarism is it's deterministic and you happen to go along with it, whether it's God or natural events that determines what must be. This was Christian faith for more than twenty centuries, that one's actions were to be determined by God's word.

Determinism to be reasonable must ultimately become nature /God ; exactly the same Being. This does not give man freedom and responsibility with regard to his own future and results in men blaming or praising God for what are really men's own choices . Stephen Hawking made good choices not because SH had something you call "will" but because SH had strength of soul.

You obviously Know the Book of Job much better than I do.

[Belinda]

I guess you like to be free to choose,

Me, personally or people in general?

and not have something or somebody else choosing what you do. As is shown by events due to climate change and wars, choices are limited by circumstances. E.g. If you are a soldier and kill people so you must do so. If you are desperate for a drink when stuck in a dry desert, you are forced to drink what you can even brackish water with germs in it. How is free will even possible. When indeed are you ever completely free to choose.

Do you think I believe in free will or determinism

Never . Therefore there is nothing for determinism to be compatible with.

So, a soldier cannot refuse to fight and put down his or her weapons? I'm not particularly an advocate for libertarian free will, but in each of your examples one could opt not to do what you say one must. Also, those are very specific, and extreme situations. There are many situations that are not like those. I can't see where you've demonstrated there is no free will, even in those situations, let alone in general.

And I'm still not sure what it has to do with what you quoted from me two posts back.

I'm unsure about most ideas, and I simply like to mull over ideas with you and others. Please see my post above this one where I reply to Immanuel Can and explain how I have no use for the word 'will' and prefer the word 'soul' .

[phyllo]

A brain is just a piece of meat, if there's no mind in it. Even corpses still have brains.

This is not the first time that you seem unable to tell the difference between alive and dead.

But yes, in one sense, the "brain" is the material entity. However, its ability to "process information" and "make decisions" is clear evidence of a "mind," not just a "brain."

Why don't support that assertion with some evidence. Show that more than a brain is required to process information and make decisions.

For the Determinist, the "brain" is all there is.

A brain is enough to produce "internal factors".

The discussion is about external and internal factors influencing a person.

This illustrates the point well. One can apply the word "emergence" to practically anything, from plants to rivers. But this is quite a different thing than when we talk about the mind-brain problem, because unlike the mind-brain problem, the "emergence" in this case is not simply more-of-the-same, as when a "river" forms an "ocean," or as when an "oak" emerges out of an "acorn."

I'm not talking about "the mind-brain problem".

I'm also not talking about consciousness.

Lots of animals have brains, process information and make decisions and "we" don't consider them as conscious or having minds or having free-will.

Are you saying that all animals are conscious, have minds and have free-will?

[Immanuel Can]

The trouble with voluntarism is it's deterministic

Umm...you'll have to explain that one, I guess. It seems obvious that they're actually opposites, and that's the way the whole debate appears to take them. So you'll need to explain in what sense you think everybody's wrong about that.

This was Christian faith for more than twenty centuries, that one's actions were to be determined by God's word.

It was not, actually. Sorry to contradict, but it just isn't the case. You really don't see any widespread Theistic Determinism in Christendom until Calvin, and even afterward, it's a minority position.

Determinism to be reasonable must ultimately become nature /God ; exactly the same Being.

Neither secularists nor Theists would agree with you. And it's contradicted from the very first verse in the whole Bible, Gen. 1:1.

Stephen Hawking made good choices not because SH had something you call "will" but because SH had strength of soul.

Again -- call it "soul" or call it "will," what you're saying is that he had something in him capable of generating authentic choice; and if so, he was not predetermined, and he had a will/soul of his own.

You obviously Know the Book of Job much better than I do.

I'm not trying to bully you with that. You asked about it, so I just said what I know.

[Immanuel Can]

A brain is just a piece of meat, if there's no mind in it. Even corpses still have brains.

This is not the first time that you seem unable to tell the difference between alive and dead.

I'm pointing out that difference, in fact: the difference is the presence of mind within the brain.

But yes, in one sense, the "brain" is the material entity. However, its ability to "process information" and "make decisions" is clear evidence of a "mind," not just a "brain."

Why don't support that assertion with some evidence.

Because it's analytic. That means it's definitionally true. If the meat can perform operations like "perceiving" or "choosing" or "making decisions," then you've already conceded the evidence.

I think that maybe you'll see that better if you acquaint yourself more fully with what "mind" and "brain" usually designate in the philosophical debate over mind and brain.

For the Determinist, the "brain" is all there is.

A brain is enough to produce "internal factors".

For the Determinist, there are no authentic cases of what you are calling "internal factors." They're all epiphenomenal.

This illustrates the point well. One can apply the word "emergence" to practically anything, from plants to rivers. But this is quite a different thing than when we talk about the mind-brain problem, because unlike the mind-brain problem, the "emergence" in this case is not simply more-of-the-same, as when a "river" forms an "ocean," or as when an "oak" emerges out of an "acorn."

I'm not talking about "the mind-brain problem".

I am. And if you're understanding the debate, you should be too, I think.

I'm also not talking about consciousness.

Well, you speak of "internal factors," but when I asked you what they were, you listed phenomena of consciousness. So it seems you were meaning consciousness.

Are you saying that all animals are conscious, have minds and have free-will?

No, of course not. Animals are creatures of instinct, rather than of decision. And they manifest no symptoms of higher consciousness, such as self-awareness, the ability to abstract, moral consideration or philosophical reflection. But they do have brains, and they do have a limited sort of mind, as well. However, it does not seem to range much beyond the rudimentary level of instinct and survival, even in the case of more sophisticated mammals, such as chimps or dolphins.

[Iwannaplato]

A brain is just a piece of meat, if there's no mind in it. Even corpses still have brains.

This is not the first time that you seem unable to tell the difference between alive and dead.

Yes, it's an equivocation, really. Yes, we use the word 'brain' to describe both living and dead 'brain stuff'. But it is not the same matter. There are all sorts of things going in living brain, in the patterns of movement in the matter, for example, that are not there is the dead brain. It's along the same lines saying that a balloon filled with oxygen and hydrogen gases is a balloon filled with water. Well, no, even if the ratios of the two elements are correct. For examples:

• Cessation of blood flow and oxygen supply.
  Energy depletion and loss of ATP production.
  Failure of electrical signaling and brain function.
  Onset of cell damage due to chemical imbalances.
  Beginning of cellular breakdown due to lack of regulation.

Note: I'm not arguing that matter is the only substance. I actully don't think matter is a coherent term. But the assertion you correctly responded to is confused.