compatibilism

[iambiguous]

But then the part where some here embrace a God said to be omniscient. Thus prompting others to then ask, "how is an omniscient God Himself compatible with human autonomy?"

Then the part where yet others will ask, "how is believing in the wrong God compatible with being sent to Hell [or its equivalent] for all of eternity?"

Then the part where I realize that my phone isn't compatible with my coworker's phone charger. Let's definitely not leave that one out.

Sure, if you believe that compatibility between phones and phone chargers is on par with compatibility between believing in particular Gods and attaining a soulful autonomy, moral commandments, immortality and salvation, so be it.

Or, click, am I missing the point? Or, as with some here, is missing their point analogous to not agreeing with it?

[Atla]

Or, click, am I missing the point?

Yes you do, and that was my point. Just carry on please.

[henry quirk]

I remember two or three times that we went through the reasoning of some particular situation with Henry Quirk. He accepted all the steps, all the logic of what happens, the logic that shows determinism is what is happening. Then at the end he reverted back to "I am a free will".

If you would: direct me to the conversation or conversations you're talkin' about, cuz, the way you sum it up, that ain't the way I remember it.

[phyllo]

I remember two or three times that we went through the reasoning of some particular situation with Henry Quirk. He accepted all the steps, all the logic of what happens, the logic that shows determinism is what is happening. Then at the end he reverted back to "I am a free will".

If you would: direct me to the conversation or conversations you're talkin' about, cuz, the way you sum it up, that ain't the way I remember it.

One such conversation was around here:
viewtopic.php?p=638308&sid=1b0458be88a2 ... 9b#p638308

[iambiguous]

The Science of Free Will by Samir Varma

In the book, I probe the many facets of this riddle through interdisciplinary explorations. How does quantum indeterminacy relate to human choice?

Go ahead, give it your best shot. Yet despite all of the disciplines out there [scientific or otherwise] it still remains a riddle to this day. Unless, of course, some will insist that, in fact, the way they understand the human brain here and now need be as far as it goes. Thus if you don't share their own dogmatic philosophical assessment, you are likely to be mocked and ridiculed. Well, click, of course.

Can subatomic particles exhibit free will?

Then the part where we pin down how this might be established given that there are approximately 7 billion billion billion atoms in the body of someone who weighs approximately 150 pounds.

The average human brain alone contains 8 to 9 million billion billion atoms.

As for how many subatomic particles there are...?

Beam me up, Scotty? Right.

What can traffic jams teach us about inevitability and self-determination? How do cross-cultural concepts of destiny and fate connect to scientific notions?

On the other hand, how many cross-cultural concepts of destiny are you familiar with? And of them all, can you note the one that is likely to come closest to the objective truth?

[iambiguous]

The Science of Free Will by Samir Varma

Some questions investigated include:

Are we living inside an advanced simulation? What are the philosophical and scientific implications for free will if reality is simulated?

As I note above...

For example, someone please explain to us how, when we click on submit here, what we post immediately shows up on all computers of those who are in the PN community. Especially the part where it all transpires in a wireless world.

Really, there are countless inventions and engineering feats so astounding they provoke in some a suspicion that maybe, just maybe this actually is only a computer simulation, or a manufactured Matrix "reality" or a dream world. The Neo Syndrome? Only with no Morpheus and Trinity [let alone an "Oracle"] around to bring you back around to...to the real reality?

How does chaos theory, with its sensitive dependence on initial conditions, relate to free will versus inevitability?

In part, chaos theory has never really sunk in for me. And that's because we do not have the capacity to determine in any ultimate or objective or essential manner just what does explain every and all material interaction. At least not "here and now" "to the best of my current knowledge".

For example, what if a God, the God is the initial condition?

Can artificial general intelligence ever achieve agency and consciousness comparable to humans?

Then those who insist they have achieved it already. It's now just a matter of convincing the rest of us why our own failure to grasp it revolves more around ignorance or stupidity. The ignorant can still be brought around, but the stupid...?

[iambiguous]

The Science of Free Will by Samir Varma

Exploring the Facets

In the book, I probe the many facets of this riddle through interdisciplinary explorations. How does quantum indeterminacy relate to human choice? Can subatomic particles exhibit free will? What can traffic jams teach us about inevitability and self-determination? How do cross-cultural concepts of destiny and fate connect to scientific notions

On the other hand, no matter how skilled one might be in intertwining all the facets one  perceives to be embedded in any particular human interactions, there is still The Gap, Rumsfeld's problematic conjectures and the Benjamin Button Syndrome.  

In other words, the gap between what we think reality is and all that we simply do not -- will not? cannot? -- grasp regarding how the human condition fits into an ontological understanding of existence itself. Or, sure, just shrug that part off as...immaterial? Bringing it all back instead to one or another rendition of God and religion? 

Some questions investigated include:- Are we living inside an advanced simulation? What are the philosophical and scientific implications for free will if reality is simulated?

No, really, what if that might actually be true? In fact, there are times when I'm convinced this might be the case. In other words, there are [technologically] some things which don't even seem possible.

Back to this:  "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" Arthur C. Clarke

Really, someone explain to me how it is possible that I can click on submit here and these words "somehow" show up on the screens of everyone now reading them. Including you. The part in particular where all of this unfolds in an entirely wireless world? Or the part where we subscribe to one or another streaming service and all of its content is within reach "in an instant" merely through clicking keys on our computers. 

How does chaos theory, with its sensitive dependence on initial conditions, relate to free will versus inevitability?

Right, like chaos theory itself is not in turn but one more inherent manifestation of the only possible reality. What seems chaotic may well reflect that gap between what we think we understand about these things and the extent to which we can demonstrate to others why it is obligatory that they believe the same. 

So much of this, however, is all just still sheer speculation. It's just that sheer speculation is easily enough reconfigured into a "my way or the highway" mentality by the metaphysical objectivists here among us..

[iambiguous]

The Science of Free Will by Samir Varma

Some questions investigated include:

Can artificial general intelligence ever achieve agency and consciousness comparable to humans?

But then the speculation by some that even if this were the case it would be but one more inherent manifestation of the only possible reality. In other words, they assume that if the human brain is in fact but more matter it is in fact wholly in sync with the laws of matter. It's just that here and now mere mortals in a No God universe have barely scratched the surface in grappling with what on Earth this actually entails.

What insights does Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem offer about our inherent capacity to fully understand even simple axiomatic systems?

More to the point [mine] what on Earth does this encompass in terms of actual consequences? If the theory  "implies that there are true statements that could never be proved, and thus we can never know with certainty if they are true or if at some point they turn out to be false" how might this be applicable to your own interactions with others?   

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem and...morality? politics? religion?  

How do different conceptual interpretations of quantum physics relate to philosophical ideas of determinism and human free choice?

Then taking these conceptual interpretations relating to philosophical ideas...? 

Down to Earth for example. How would someone encompass this theory in regard to their own social, political and economic interactions? How complete or incomplete can their assumptions be when discussing "the daily news"? 

Do recent findings in neuroscience about unconscious neural precursor activity threaten free will or actually underscore its persistence in complex brains?

And how inherently problematic -- incomplete? -- might that be? 

Is the experience of conscious free will required for morality, justice and the concept of legal liability and responsibility?

I'd say so. But this always encompasses The Gap and Rumsfeld's speculations regarding all of the things we don't even know that we don't even know [yet] about the human brain itself.

[iambiguous]

Slavoj Zizek and the Case for Compatibilism
Compatibilism is supported by deep intuitions about responsibility and control. It can also feel "obviously" wrong and absurd. Slavoj Žižek's commentary can help us navigate the intuitive standoff
Ben Burgis

A couple weeks ago, I wrote something here debunking Sam Harris’s arguments against free will. I put my own (compatibilist) cards on the table, but my overall point was a narrow one—that Harris’s arguments don’t touch the most plausible compatibilist or incompatibilist accounts of free will.

Right, the "most plausible" accounts. And then those among who insist that would be their own account. Some accumulate assumptions debunking free will while others accumulate assumptions debunking determinism.

On the other hand, philosophers have been grappling for thousands of years now with the conundrum embedded in the reality of brains explaining themselves. In other words, given The Gap and Rumsfeld's conjectures regarding those "things we don't know we don't know" about it.

I merely make the assumption that in a No God universe mere mortals may never come to grasp the full extent to which the brain functions either autonomously or autonomically. In other words, when the author "wrote something debunking Sam Harris’s arguments against free will" how exactly would he go about demonstrating definitively the extent to which he did so autonomously?

When that essay came out, a reliably well-read informant—Matthew Rice, to give the man his due shout-out—sent me a passage from Slavoj Žižek’s 2012 book Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism containing a surprising endorsement of compatibilism about free will and determinism:

"Compatibilists such as Daniel Dennett have an elegant solution to the incompatibilists’ complaints about determinism: when incompatibilists complain that our freedom cannot be combined with the fact that all our acts are part of the great chain of natural determinism, they secretly make an unwarranted ontological assumption: first, they assume that we (the Self, the free agent) somehow stand outside reality, then they go on to complain about how they feel oppressed by the notion that reality in its determinism controls them totally."

"Incompatibilism is the philosophical view that free will and determinism are logically incompatible. This means that if determinism is true (the idea that all events are causally determined by prior events), then free will cannot exist, or if free will exists, then determinism must be false. Incompatibilists believe that a choice is only truly free if it is not causally determined by past events."   AI 

Assumptions. Some accumulate one set in order to debunk free will while others accumulate another set in order to debunk determinism.

Then what?