compatibilism

[Iwannaplato]

That phrase "Mary was unable to not abort" suggests that Mary wants not to abort but is prevented from not aborting by her brain or "the laws of matter".

But that's not the case. Mary wants to have an abortion. If she didn't want to have an abortion, then she wouldn't have an abortion.

There is no Mary here who wants to give birth but is prevented from doing so.

In this scenario. There would be, somewhere, some woman - perhaps sex trafficked - who is forced to have the abortion.

I say this not because I think you've misunderstood this or something.

But rather to highlight how some compatiblists view this. Freedom is freedom from (some degree of) external compulsion.

The odd thing about non-compatiblist forms of free will is that the freedom allows on to go against one's own wishes.

(in fact, compatibilists hold a bunch of different opinions, but I focused on one in this post)

[Atla]

Okay, there really is an official APA, Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Definition of compatibilism.

And does that surprise you, is this your first day on philosophy forums?

So, take that definition down out of the technical, philosophical contraption clouds and note its applicability to the point I make here

Not interested in that, I think the real free will vs determinism issue probably goes beyond 4-dimensional thinking.

[Flannel Jesus]

Is that what they are concluding? Not that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism, but that the compatibilists thinking that it is is?

How could they be concluding that they think moral responsibility is reconcilable with determinism, but not be concluding that it's actually reconcilable with determinism? I don't understand this idea you've presented here.

Doesn't someone saying "I think X" also, in general, imply that they believe "actually X"?

[iambiguous]

Again, with henry it's not so much what he posts, but the manner in which he invariably communicates a flagrantly arrogant "this is the way it is and if you don't agree with me, you're flat out wrong!" inflection. Same with his take on life and liberty and property. There's his own God given assessment of them and all the idiots who disagree.

Only here it is in regard to the human brain itself!!!

As for the entangled nature of mind, there are any number of afflictions -- from tumors to brain diseases -- that can have a profound impact on the manner in which the self is grasped by any particular individual. And then pertaining to the behaviors he or she chooses.

And, again, that's assuming that we have free will at all.

But, of course, henry has his own sneering and insufferably pompous "my way or the highway" bumptiousness about him here too.

Go ahead, ask him.
.

One who pays attention to what's actually going on in the wholly on-the-ground-not-up-in-the-clouds research knows tumors to brain diseases often have devastating physical effects but none at all on the coherence and continuity of the I behind the eyes.

Stella's dementia is confusing and frustrating for her becuz she, the person, the mind, the I, is trapped in it. Stella hasn't become a different person, only a trapped one who acts accordingly.

Joe's brain tumor affects his sight, his mobility, his continence. He's angry about it. He's trapped, not changed.

Lucinda's Tourettes embarrasses her. The tics, the vocalizations, trap her, not turn her into a different person.

The topper is Phineas P. Gage. A large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe. Supposedly the injury effected his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his life. Gage is often held up as an evidence mind is brain product.

How else can you explain his personality change, Henry?

I reckon having a disfiguring, debilitating injury would sour me too. I wouldn't be a different person, just an awfully disgruntled one.

Again, read a few books by Oliver Sacks in order to note just how far medical afflictions can yank "I" into all manner of fantastical directions.

Or consider this opinion piece from the New York Times:

Your Brain, Your Disease, Your Self

By Nina Strohminger and Shaun Nichols

WHEN does the deterioration of your brain rob you of your identity, and when does it not?

Alzheimer’s, the neurodegenerative disease that erodes old memories and the ability to form new ones, has a reputation as a ruthless plunderer of selfhood. People with the disease may no longer seem like themselves.

Neurodegenerative diseases that target the motor system, like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, can lead to equally devastating consequences: difficulty moving, walking, speaking and eventually, swallowing and breathing. Yet they do not seem to threaten the fabric of selfhood in quite the same way.

Memory, it seems, is central to identity. And indeed, many philosophers and psychologists have supposed as much. This idea is intuitive enough, for what captures our personal trajectory through life better than the vault of our recollections?

But maybe this conventional wisdom is wrong. After all, the array of cognitive faculties affected by neurodegenerative diseases is vast: language, emotion, visual processing, personality, intelligence, moral behavior. Perhaps some of these play a role in securing a person’s identity.

The challenge in trying in determine what parts of the mind contribute to personal identity is that each neurodegenerative disease can affect many cognitive systems, with the exact constellation of symptoms manifesting differently from one patient to the next. For instance, some Alzheimer’s patients experience only memory loss, whereas others also experience personality change or impaired visual recognition.

The only way to tease apart which changes render someone unrecognizable is to compare all such symptoms, across multiple diseases. And that’s just what we did, in a study published this month in Psychological Science.

What we found runs counter to what many people might expect, and certainly what most psychologists would have guessed: The single most powerful predictor of identity change was not disruption to memory — but rather disruption to the moral faculty.

We surveyed 248 family members of people who had one of three types of neurodegenerative disease: Alzheimer’s, A.L.S. or frontotemporal dementia.

Frontotemporal dementia is the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s. It obliterates executive function in the brain, impairing self-control and scrambling the moral compass. People with the disease are prone to antisocial outbursts, apathy, pathological lying, stealing and sexual infidelity.

In one part of the survey, we asked the family members questions designed to evaluate identity persistence. For instance, did they feel like they still knew who the patient was? Did the patient ever seem like a stranger?

We found that people with frontotemporal dementia exhibited the highest degree of identity change, and that people with A.L.S. exhibited the least. People with Alzheimer’s were somewhere between these two extremes.

While this result was suggestive, it still didn’t tell us which specific symptoms were causing the patients to no longer seem like themselves. For this, we would need to collect a detailed history of the scope and extent of the symptoms that each patient had experienced.

So in another part of the survey, we asked about basic cognitive faculties, like executing voluntary movements and object recognition; about the patient’s memory for words and facts and autobiographical details; about emotional changes like agitation and depression; about nonmoral personality change, like extroversion, sense of humor, creativity and intelligence; and about moral character and moral behavior changes, such as empathy, honesty and compassion.

We found that disruptions to the moral faculty created a powerful sense that the patient’s identity had been compromised. Virtually no other mental impairment led people to stop seeming like themselves. This included amnesia, personality change, loss of intelligence, emotional disturbances and the ability to perform basic daily tasks.

For those with Alzheimer’s, neither degree nor type of memory impairment impacted perceived identity. All that mattered was whether their moral capacities remained intact.

Though more in alignment with your point they do note that...

As monstrous as neurodegenerative disease is, its powers of identity theft have been greatly exaggerated. Remarkably, a person can undergo significant cognitive change and still come across as fundamentally the same person.

What makes us recognizable to others resides almost entirely within a relatively narrow band of cognitive functioning. It is only when our grip on the moral universe loosens that our identity slips away with it.

Again, it can vary considerably from person to person. But the fact is that any number of afflicted individuals can lose that grip on their "moral compass".

I merely interject here and suggest that our moral compass itself is not derived from IC's Christian God or from your Deist God or from the APA; that instead it is rooted existentially [historically, culturally, experientially] in dasein.

Then the classic case of Charles Whitman: https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... in-damage/

It's just that in regard to the free will debate, the brains of hardcore determinists compel them to insist that everything that everyone of us [diseased or not] think, feel, say and do is but an inherent manifestation of the laws of matter.

In other words, of the only possible reality.

Yes, henry quirk, you too are but one more of nature's meat minds.

[iambiguous]

We're not stuck. There's one issue - the issue of you understanding compatibilism. That's it. You believe that compatibilism is about making exceptions to determinism. I've provided a number of compelling reasons why that isn't what compatibilism is about. All I'm awaiting now is for an explicit reason why you disagree, or alternatively, for you to agree. For you to agree that compatibilism does not involve those exceptions, because the need for exceptions implies that the two things are not compatible.

Do you agree? If not, why not?

We're not stuck, there is a clear step to take. Perhaps you don't want to take it. It's that what it is? Is that why you keep saying we're stuck? Because you do not want to take the clear next step?

Again, and for the last time, what does the above have to do with this...

[Compatibilists] believe what they do only because they were never able not to believe it. So, compatibilists reconcile an inevitable, wholly determined abortion with moral responsibility but only because every single component of their brain, in sync with the laws of matter, compels them to? Is that what they are concluding? Not that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism, but that the compatibilists thinking that it is is?

It simply makes no sense to me "here and now" that if Mary was unable not to abort her unborn baby, that she can still be held morally responsible for doing so. Unless, when someone does hold her morally responsible, they do so, in turn, only because they were never able not to...in a world where all of our brains are entirely in sync with the laws of matter. And thus everything that we think and feel and say and do is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality.

Then "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule" in regard to grasping how the human condition fits into the ontological -- teleological? -- understanding of the existence of existence itself.

It has everything to do with it - you want to talk about compatibilism, so it's important to understand what compatibilism is. So first thing's first, understanding what it is and what it's not.

It's not about making exceptions inside human brains.

You said understanding compatibilism properly was of interest to you. That makes sense, it would be quite strange for someone to write as much about compatibilism as you have without even attempting to understand it. So, I'm here to help you understand it.

Again, and for the last time -- and this time I really mean it! -- what does the above have to do with this...

[Compatibilists] believe what they do only because they were never able not to believe it. So, compatibilists reconcile an inevitable, wholly determined abortion with moral responsibility but only because every single component of their brain, in sync with the laws of matter, compels them to? Is that what they are concluding? Not that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism, but that the compatibilists thinking that it is is?

It simply makes no sense to me "here and now" that if Mary was unable not to abort her unborn baby, that she can still be held morally responsible for doing so. Unless, when someone does hold her morally responsible, they do so, in turn, only because they were never able not to...in a world where all of our brains are entirely in sync with the laws of matter. And thus everything that we think and feel and say and do is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality.

Then "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule" in regard to grasping how the human condition fits into the ontological -- teleological? -- understanding of the existence of existence itself.

[Iwannaplato]

Well, one possible response, Flannel, is if the whole bifuricated brains thing had nothing to do with his interests and it had nothing to do with his understanding of compatibilism, why'd he bring it up.

It's as if you entered a thread talking about compatibilism and brought up bifurcated brains yourself.

[Iwannaplato]

Okay, there really is an official APA, Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Definition of compatibilism.

And does that surprise you, is this your first day on philosophy forums?

So, take that definition down out of the technical, philosophical contraption clouds and note its applicability to the point I make here

Not interested in that, I think the real free will vs determinism issue probably goes beyond 4-dimensional thinking.

I'd just like to translate that second quote and remove the implicit insult.

Could you give me a concrete example?
or
I'm not sure what that meant. It was very abstract. Could you give me some concrete examples?

[Flannel Jesus]

It looks like he's finally accepted that the definition of compatibilism doesn't involve bifurcated brains... maybe. That's fantastic progress, if that's what has actually happened then his future writings about compatibilism will improve. Positive result.

[Atla]

Okay, there really is an official APA, Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Definition of compatibilism.

And does that surprise you, is this your first day on philosophy forums?

So, take that definition down out of the technical, philosophical contraption clouds and note its applicability to the point I make here

Not interested in that, I think the real free will vs determinism issue probably goes beyond 4-dimensional thinking.

I'd just like to translate that second quote and remove the implicit insult.

Could you give me a concrete example?
or
I'm not sure what that meant. It was very abstract. Could you give me some concrete examples?

He was also misusing 'dasein', I construe this I construe that. Maybe he should start a blog with comments turned off, that way people won't interrupt him when he's talking to himself.

Looks like he can't read people at all, that's why as a substitute he's obsessed with explaining people's behaviour using blanket nonsense like dasein and free will / lack thereof. The question is why all the dishonesty and insults though, it's kinda petty.

[iambiguous]

It simply makes no sense to me "here and now" that if Mary was unable not to abort her unborn baby, that she can still be held morally responsible for doing so. Unless, when someone does hold her morally responsible, they do so, in turn, only because they were never able not to...in a world where all of our brains are entirely in sync with the laws of matter. And thus everything that we think and feel and say and do is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality.

Then "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule" in regard to grasping how the human condition fits into the ontological -- teleological? -- understanding of the existence of existence itself.

That phrase "Mary was unable to not abort" suggests that Mary wants not to abort but is prevented from not aborting by her brain or "the laws of matter".

But that's not the case. Mary wants to have an abortion. If she didn't want to have an abortion, then she wouldn't have an abortion.

And around and around we go. Cue Schopenhauer: Mary wants to have an abortion but Mary can't want what she wants. Instead, she wants only what her brain compels her to want.

Then the brain in dreamland.

In a dream, Mary has an abortion. And, while in the dream, it's like she wasn't dreaming at all. She "experiences" having the abortion just as though it were the wide awake world. In fact, she wakes up in the morning marveling at how her brain itself concocted this "reality"! Given that she wasn't even pregnant!!

And, in a free will world, Mary wants to have an abortion and Jane is toast. But a friend of hers, of her own volition, talks her out of it and Jane is now among us.

There is no Mary here who wants to give birth but is prevented from doing so.

Well, my own "Mary" from Essex Community College got pregnant a year after Roe v. Wade. So she was able to obtain an abortion that she definitely wanted. And the state did not prevent her.

But: did my "Mary" have free will or not? Some determinists argue that she did not. Some libertarians argue that she did. Okay, Mr. Philosopher and Mr. Neuroscientist, did she or didn't she?

You argue...

If Mary had libertarian free-will, then she would do what she wants about the pregnancy. Notice that under determinism, Mary also does what she wants.

Mary acts the same whether she has free-will or not. Therefore, compatibilists say that free-will is compatible with determinism.

Again, under determinism as some understand it, she does what she wants but she could not want what she wanted. Her brain was wholly in command there.

Though, sure, maybe not. After all, I'm here day after day posting as though I have free will. It's just that -- compelled or not -- I have come to believe that if the human brain is just more matter immutably in sync with the laws of matter, then my brain commands me in the wide-awake world just as it does in the dream world.

As I recall, years ago at ILP, I once defended free will myself against those there like Volchok.

[Compatibilists] believe what they do only because they were never able not to believe it. So, compatibilists reconcile an inevitable, wholly determined abortion with moral responsibility but only because every single component of their brain, in sync with the laws of matter, compels them to? Is that what they are concluding? Not that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism, but that the compatibilists thinking that it is is?

This statement suggests that compatibilists want to believe something else but are prevented from believing it.

Many determinists argue that what compatibilists want to believe they want to believe only because they were never able not to want to. Back to Schopenhauer.

Though, again, I'm the first to admit that, given free will, I'm simply not understanding him correctly. And that in fact the points you and others raise here are more reasonable than my points. I would never deny that possibility. But, compelled or not, "here and now" my frame of mind still makes more sense to me.

That's why I often note this part:

Then "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule" in regard to grasping how the human condition fits into the ontological -- teleological? -- understanding of the existence of existence itself.

Of course, the henry quirks here just shrug that part off. After all, he himself has his Deist God to explain the existence of existence itself. Right, henry?

How about you? Is there a God, the God around for you to come back to in regard to free will and your soul?

But compatibilists believe what their experience leads them to believe.

They would have the same beliefs in a free-will world and in a determined world.

Why? Because they would have had the same experiences. They would have been exposed to the same evidence. And they would have reached the same conclusions.

Again and again: this all comes down to whether or not philosophers or scientists or theologians ever do finally pin this all down once and for all.

And for those here who, indeed, think any of them already have, link me to it.

[iambiguous]

ME:

Anyway, my main argument revolves around the fact that given what mere mortals here on planet Earth don't grasp regarding this...

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

...how on Earth would we go about pinning down which of us here actually is either right or wrong?

As for definitions, my "thing" here is more about asking those who believe that their own definition of compatibilism is the correct one to bring that definition out of the dictionary and note its applicability to Mary aborting her unborn baby/clump of cells.

She could never have not "chosen" to abort her unborn baby/clump of cells, but others can still choose to hold her morally responsible for doing so?

That's the issue, you are on a philosophy forum, why don't you start acting like you are. You don't get to re-define key philosophical concepts such as "compatibilism", clear communication is quite necessary here. Unless you can show that compatibilism also includes bifurcating brains, which you haven't done so far.

If you want to investigate the possibility of bifurcating brains, and how it's not really relevant to moral responsibility, that's perfectly fine with everyone here. What they are saying is, just don't call that compatibilism.

Okay, there really is an official APA, Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Definition of compatibilism.

So, take that definition down out of the technical, philosophical contraption clouds and note its applicability to the point I make here:

[Compatibilists] believe what they do only because they were never able not to believe it. So, compatibilists reconcile an inevitable, wholly determined abortion with moral responsibility but only because every single component of their brain, in sync with the laws of matter, compels them to? Is that what they are concluding? Not that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism, but that the compatibilists thinking that it is is?

It simply makes no sense to me "here and now" that if Mary was unable not to abort her unborn baby, that she can still be held morally responsible for doing so. Unless, when someone does hold her morally responsible, they do so, in turn, only because they were never able not to...in a world where all of our brains are entirely in sync with the laws of matter. And thus everything that we think and feel and say and do is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality.

HIM:

Okay, there really is an official APA, Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Definition of compatibilism.

And does that surprise you, is this your first day on philosophy forums?

So, take that definition down out of the technical, philosophical contraption clouds and note its applicability to the point I make here

Not interested in that, I think the real free will vs determinism issue probably goes beyond 4-dimensional thinking.

As I noted above, "Okay, I'll roll the dice here and actually take him seriously."

Instead, he turns out to be just another Stooge

[Atla]

ME:

Anyway, my main argument revolves around the fact that given what mere mortals here on planet Earth don't grasp regarding this...

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

...how on Earth would we go about pinning down which of us here actually is either right or wrong?

As for definitions, my "thing" here is more about asking those who believe that their own definition of compatibilism is the correct one to bring that definition out of the dictionary and note its applicability to Mary aborting her unborn baby/clump of cells.

She could never have not "chosen" to abort her unborn baby/clump of cells, but others can still choose to hold her morally responsible for doing so?

That's the issue, you are on a philosophy forum, why don't you start acting like you are. You don't get to re-define key philosophical concepts such as "compatibilism", clear communication is quite necessary here. Unless you can show that compatibilism also includes bifurcating brains, which you haven't done so far.

If you want to investigate the possibility of bifurcating brains, and how it's not really relevant to moral responsibility, that's perfectly fine with everyone here. What they are saying is, just don't call that compatibilism.

Okay, there really is an official APA, Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Definition of compatibilism.

So, take that definition down out of the technical, philosophical contraption clouds and note its applicability to the point I make here:

[Compatibilists] believe what they do only because they were never able not to believe it. So, compatibilists reconcile an inevitable, wholly determined abortion with moral responsibility but only because every single component of their brain, in sync with the laws of matter, compels them to? Is that what they are concluding? Not that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism, but that the compatibilists thinking that it is is?

It simply makes no sense to me "here and now" that if Mary was unable not to abort her unborn baby, that she can still be held morally responsible for doing so. Unless, when someone does hold her morally responsible, they do so, in turn, only because they were never able not to...in a world where all of our brains are entirely in sync with the laws of matter. And thus everything that we think and feel and say and do is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality.

HIM:

Okay, there really is an official APA, Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Definition of compatibilism.

And does that surprise you, is this your first day on philosophy forums?

So, take that definition down out of the technical, philosophical contraption clouds and note its applicability to the point I make here

Not interested in that, I think the real free will vs determinism issue probably goes beyond 4-dimensional thinking.

As I noted above, "Okay, I'll roll the dice here and actually take him seriously."

Instead, he turns out to be just another Stooge

Yeah yeah stop being petty and show the definition where compatibilism includes bifurcating brains. Not my problem that you keep spending effort on diversions.

[iambiguous]

Well, one possible response, Flannel, is if the whole bifuricated brains thing had nothing to do with his interests and it had nothing to do with his understanding of compatibilism, why'd he bring it up.

It's as if you entered a thread talking about compatibilism and brought up bifurcated brains yourself.

Go back to page 218. To the loooong post where I examined the gap between you and I here.

The post where I tacked on this at the end:

And it still sounds like a personal problem to me. He doesn't like me. Again, I have my own rooted existentially in dasein suspicions regarding that. In other words, why he doesn't like me.

Let him choose a moral conflagration of note. Let us exchange our moral philosophies in regard to it. Let's see if I can bring to the surface what I suspect it is that most disturbs him about me.

Assuming, of course, that we do possess some measure of free will.

And I explained my own thinking regarding compatibilism here:

Again, let's bring this down to Earth. Compatibilism and moral responsibility. My own main interest in the Big Questions.

Mary has aborted her unborn baby. And you are a compatibilist. So, how does her brain function here? Is a part of it wholly in sync with the laws of matter...the laws of nature...such she was never able to not abort the baby? Is there another part of her brain, however, the part that revolves around "character and values", such that she can still be held morally responsible for doing so?

A brain with two parts. A part entirely intertwined in the laws a matter and a part that "somehow" still makes us morally responsible for the things that we "choose" to do?

Why can't it be argued that, on the contrary, all of the brain's functions are inherent manifestations of the only possible reality?

Again, like Mary dreaming that she had an abortion when she was not even pregnant. She wakes up marveling at the fact that in the dream it was like she wasn't dreaming at all. In the dream she did choose to have an abortion. She marvels at how, while sound asleep, it was her brain itself that created this "reality".

Well, what if, in a way we simply do not understand, the waking brain is just another necessary manifestation of the laws of matter. That the autonomy we "just know" deep down inside that we have is a psychological illusion because human psychology itself is but another intrinsic component of Nature's laws. That while the human brain is clearly like no other matter around, it still is like all other matter around. Isn't that why many come back to God here as one possible explanation? And isn't it a fact that scientists are still just grappling to explain it...empirically, experientially, experimentally? And that philosophers go about it more by defining or deducing free will into existence? As some do with God?

Me? Well, I flat out admit that my own speculation here is just a wild-ass "philosophical" conjecture given this part:

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

Then those here who actually believe that what they believe about all of this reflects, what, the ontological truth about the human condition itself?

Then those who are compelled in turn to insist on a teleological component as well. Usually in the form of one or another God.

Meanwhile, philosophers and scientists and theologians have been grappling with this profound mystery now for thousands of years.

Either in the only possible reality in the only possible world or of their own volition.

Then ever and always this part:

[Compatibilists] believe what they do only because they were never able not to believe it. So, compatibilists reconcile an inevitable, wholly determined abortion with moral responsibility but only because every single component of their brain, in sync with the laws of matter, compels them to? Is that what they are concluding? Not that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism, but that the compatibilists thinking that it is is?

It simply makes no sense to me "here and now" that if Mary was unable not to abort her unborn baby, that she can still be held morally responsible for doing so. Unless, when someone does hold her morally responsible, they do so, in turn, only because they were never able not to...in a world where all of our brains are entirely in sync with the laws of matter. And thus everything that we think and feel and say and do is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality.

Okay, given your own definition and understanding of compatibilism how is it relevant to the points I raise above.

[Flannel Jesus]

Okay, given your own definition and understanding of compatibilism how is it relevant to the points I raise above.

If you are making points about compatibilism, then understanding what compatibilism is will always be relevant.

[phyllo]

And around and around we go. Cue Schopenhauer: Mary wants to have an abortion but Mary can't want what she wants. Instead, she wants only what her brain compels her to want.

Her brain is the source of her wants. Obviously she can't want something else.

And, in a free will world, Mary wants to have an abortion and Jane is toast. But a friend of hers, of her own volition, talks her out of it and Jane is now among us.

You keep repeating this as if Mary can't be talked out of her abortion in a determined world. That's simply not true.

You seem to think that no matter what is said to determined Mary, she will ignore them and still have an abortion. That's not how determinism works. Determined Mary will respond in some way and one possible response is changing her mind about the abortion.

Again, under determinism as some understand it, she does what she wants but she could not want what she wanted. Her brain was wholly in command there.

You repeat this again.

In a free-will world Mary does not get to chose her wants, either. Her wants are the product of her experiences. She doesn't have some set of wants which is independent of the state of her brain.

Many determinists argue that what compatibilists want to believe they want to believe only because they were never able not to want to. Back to Schopenhauer.

That's nice.

But free-willers have no more control over their wants than do determinists.