compatibilism

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Can anyone point to an instance of free will here?

If there's free will at all, then an instance would be you choosing to write and submit that post.

I felt compelled FJ. What about you? Could you not have posted? Apart from what's the point? Couldn't be arsed.

[Flannel Jesus]

Can anyone point to an instance of free will here?

If there's free will at all, then an instance would be you choosing to write and submit that post.

I felt compelled FJ. What about you? Could you not have posted? Apart from what's the point? Couldn't be arsed.

If I didn't want to post, I wouldn't have. Nobody was around to force me. What's free will if not doing the thing you want to do?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

If there's free will at all, then an instance would be you choosing to write and submit that post.

I felt compelled FJ. What about you? Could you not have posted? Apart from what's the point? Couldn't be arsed.

If I didn't want to post, I wouldn't have. Nobody was around to force me. What's free will if not doing the thing you want to do?

Why do you want to do it? (Schopenhauer)

[Flannel Jesus]

Why do you want to do it? (Schopenhauer)

I don't think anybody has full accurate introspection on all their wants. I certainly don't think I do.

Why is Schopenhauer in parenthases there?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Why do you want to do it? (Schopenhauer)

I don't think anybody has full accurate introspection on all their wants. I certainly don't think I do.

Why is Schopenhauer in parenthases there?

Then there you have it.

Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.
Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.
Einstein paraphrasing Schopenhauer.

[iambiguous]

  phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Jun 29, 2025 2:29 am
First off start with the scientists since you have already brought it up, is it or is it not the consensus of science that there is no libertarian free-will?

Anyone here -- click -- actually know what the breakdown is? Besides, even if there is a consensus one way or another, how would it be demonstrated that this too is not but another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality?

So the first question suggests that you are interested in the scientific consensus. ("what the breakdown is?")

Sure. There are scientists among us and Libertarians among us. How many are both? 

And the second question suggests that you don't care or that you will dismiss the answer. ("Besides, even if there is a consensus one way or another, how would it be demonstrated that this too is not but another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality?")

No, that's just a reminder that however the future unfolds, it's one thing to argue about it philosophically in a world of words and another thing altogether demonstrating that what you believe is objectively applicable to all of us. In other words, dismissing an argument or an answer is one thing, providing solid empirical, experiential and experimental proof to back it up, another thing altogether.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 28, 2025 9:29 pm
    You don't think it's possible to come up with a set of basic facts about compatibilism? Based on what has been written about compatibilism over the centuries?

Okay, let that be the subject. The three of you can note what this set of basic facts is. Then, given a particular set of circumstances, you can note how your own assessments are applicable existentially. See if there are any significant disagreements. That way, perhaps, we can note how philosophers are supposed to handle such things.

IOW, you're not interested in knowing the basic facts. You're interested in how individuals'  "assessments are applicable existentially".

What basic facts pertaining to human interactions? And what I am interested in is the extent to which individual assessments are backed up with solid scientific evidence. Again, there are things regarding the human condition that are in fact applicable to all of us. We just don't know if, in grappling with this, we do so of our own volition.     

The actual facts are irrelevant?

The actual facts regarding what? And then the part where some insist that human autonomy is in fact just another manifestation of God, or of Pantheism, or is just a "natural" component of existence itself.

But the accusations leveled at me by some here are particularly caustic. Go ahead, check out the posts on this thread over the past few days:

Two reasons for this come to mind.

This place, PN, is full of personal attacks.

You have a number of annoying personal posting habits.

Oh, so the attacks above leveled at me can be rationalized as actually being my fault. And, again, what annoys some here about me is, in my view, that my own fractured and fragmented moral philosophy is starting to sink in. And I know full-well what the existential consequences of that can be.

I know, nobody needs to read or respond to your stuff. But that just lets you spread your misinformation freely. Some impressionable person might believe that your nonsense is true. And then catastrophe  :shock:

Well, click of course. 
Still, as I continue to contribute posts to this thread, please, by all means, tag along and note all of the nonsense I sustain. You know, if you do say so yourself.

   As for historians -- click -- they might actually agree regarding historical facts, but where is the consensus regarding what those facts convey in regard to rational or irrational value judgments?

   

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 28, 2025 9:29 pm
    That's moving the goal posts from knowledge to value judgements.

That's my point though. In the either/or world, facts are facts are facts for everyone. In the is/ought world, however, what is in fact true for all of us in regard to conflicting goods?

That can't be your point because the conversation was about philosophy and science and The Gap and Rummy's Rules ... nothing was said about value judgements until you arbitrarily stuck it in. IOW, you just changed the subject from The Gap and Rummy's Rules to facts and value judgements.
Intentionally or you are not even aware of doing these things?

Simply unbelievable.

Over and again, I go in search of arguments that might allow me to understand how compatibilists have been able to go about reconciling determinism with moral responsibility. Value judgments and conflicting goods along with dasein and political economy have always been my main focus here. But: is that focus autonomous or autonomic?

So, using the tools at their disposal, what has the philosophical community definitively concluded regarding those who claim that compatibilism and determinism are, well, compatible.

Compatibilism is a version of determinism. IOW, compatibilism is determinism with a specific concept of will.

Okay, note how that is applicable for all practical purposes given the behaviors you choose.

Am I right or am I wrong?

Again, on this thread, the point isn't in being right or wrong, but in being able to demonstrate that either way it's a reflection of free will.

Are you right or are you wrong of your own volition or not? What actual empirical evidence have you accumulated to pin that down.

Then this part:

I still have no understanding of how God and religion function for you here in this regard. Do you believe that you have a God-given soul? Is God the font you fall back on in regard to autonomy?

You can't admit that compatibilism is a version of determinism?

You don't know? You don't care?

Instead I'm supposed to jabber about how this fact is applicable to my behaviors?

Okay -- click -- wiggle, wiggle wiggle it is then. 

You think what you do now about compatibilism. You think what you do now about the behaviors you choose. How are the two intertwined in your head in regard to things like posting here? Just thinking that it all revolves around free will is simply not the same as demonstrating it. And what is the philosophical equivalent of the scientific method here in reaching a conclusion?

[Atla]

Over and again, I go in search of arguments that might allow me to understand how compatibilists have been able to go about reconciling determinism with moral responsibility.

They told you how, and it doesn't even require arguments. Has it occured to you in the last 50 years to look up the dictionary definition of compatibilism?

Now it's really annoying to me that the expression "free will" has two mutually exclusive meanings in use, but to an autist this could be downright inconceivable.

[iambiguous]

Over and again, I go in search of arguments that might allow me to understand how compatibilists have been able to go about reconciling determinism with moral responsibility.

They told you how, and it doesn't even require arguments. Has it occured to you in the last 50 years to look up the dictionary definition of compatibilism?

Now it's really annoying to me that the expression "free will" has two mutually exclusive meanings in use, but to an autist this could be downright inconceivable.

The incredible shrinking exchange!


Sigh...

It's not about looking up the definition of compatibilism in a dictionary so much as demonstrating one way or another whether in doing so we were able to opt freely of our own volition.

In other words, click.

Or should we go word for word for word and establish the precise dictionary definition for all of these words?

Besides, the hardcore determinists will note, we are only able to define words autonomically, sustaining but the psychological illusion of free will.

[Flannel Jesus]

Why do you want to do it? (Schopenhauer)

I don't think anybody has full accurate introspection on all their wants. I certainly don't think I do.

Why is Schopenhauer in parenthases there?

Then there you have it.

Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.
Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.
Einstein paraphrasing Schopenhauer.

Yeah, I agree with that fully. In fact that quote is at the center of my own compatibilism.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

It's have your cake and eat it,

As Steven Weinberg puts it: "I would say that free will is nothing but our conscious experience of deciding what to do, which I know I am experiencing as I write this review, and this experience is not invalidated by the reflection that physical laws made it inevitable that I would want to make these decisions."[

Wiki

[Atla]

Over and again, I go in search of arguments that might allow me to understand how compatibilists have been able to go about reconciling determinism with moral responsibility.

They told you how, and it doesn't even require arguments. Has it occured to you in the last 50 years to look up the dictionary definition of compatibilism?

Now it's really annoying to me that the expression "free will" has two mutually exclusive meanings in use, but to an autist this could be downright inconceivable.

The incredible shrinking exchange!


Sigh...

It's not about looking up the definition of compatibilism in a dictionary so much as demonstrating one way or another whether in doing so we were able to opt freely of our own volition.

In other words, click.

Or should we go word for word for word and establish the precise dictionary definition for all of these words?

Besides, the hardcore determinists will note, we are only able to define words autonomically, sustaining but the psychological illusion of free will.

Naturally, you're just bullshitting all over the place. Demonstrating one way or another whether we are able to opt freely of our own volition, is irrelevant to dictionary definitions.

[Flannel Jesus]

Over and again, I go in search of arguments that might allow me to understand how compatibilists have been able to go about reconciling determinism with moral responsibility.

Why do you do that over and over again? You've read more arguments for compatibilism than most people. Maybe you read them and you just... disagree with compatibilism. That's allowed, you know? You can quit looking for more, you're allowed to move on to ideas you find more appealing.

Your obsession with an idea that you obviously don't like is kinda... insane. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insane, right?

You don't like compatibilism. That's okay. Reject it, get over it, move on. What's stopping you from moving on? Is it because you desperately want compatibilism to be true?

[FlashDangerpants]

Over and again, I go in search of arguments that might allow me to understand how compatibilists have been able to go about reconciling determinism with moral responsibility.

Why do you do that over and over again? You've read more arguments for compatibilism than most people.

Is he able to accurately describe any of these arguments and analyse their function?

All I've ever seen him do is demand to take things out of a cloud and turn them into a discussion of abortion. He doesn't seem to address other people's arguments as a rule.

[phyllo]

Over and again, I go in search of arguments that might allow me to understand how compatibilists have been able to go about reconciling determinism with moral responsibility.

Why do you do that over and over again? You've read more arguments for compatibilism than most people. Maybe you read them and you just... disagree with compatibilism. That's allowed, you know? You can quit looking for more, you're allowed to move on to ideas you find more appealing.

Your obsession with an idea that you obviously don't like is kinda... insane. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insane, right?

You don't like compatibilism. That's okay. Reject it, get over it, move on. What's stopping you from moving on? Is it because you desperately want compatibilism to be true?

Remember when IWP tried to discuss how moral responsibility could exist within determinism, Iambiguous completely stonewalled him? That happens to everyone. Iambiguous is not interested in any arguments, in spite of constantly "searching" for them.

It's all bullshit.

You don't like compatibilism.

How can Iambiguous dislike compatibilism when he doesn't even know what it consists of? He dislikes some imagined compatibilism.

[phyllo]

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.

This must also be true for libertarian free-will.

The libertarian is born with certain characteristics, which he did not choose.

He encounters people which he does not choose, who shape his wants and desires.

Events occur which he does not choose, which also shape his wants and desires.

Where is the self-generated want of the libertarian? The want which did not come from somewhere beyond his control?