compatibilism

[Flannel Jesus]

I think HQ understands and accepts the reasoning but he bails out at the last minute.

As is his right. I expect no change, now or in the future, but I will reserve the right to be amused by it.

[Iwannaplato]

You are in a jungle with a machete. You look around. You decide where the best place is to cut. The decision is based on the environment, your ability, your goals, your tools. The path is created by your cutting. It wasn't there before you cut it. When you look back, you say "Yeah, that path was determined. I would not cut anything differently. I thought that it was the best cut to make at that time and place. "

See, that to me, sounds like libertarian free will, not compatibilism or necessitarianism. I decide where to cut, I imagine, I assess, I prepare, I do, I determine, I cause. Not my history or the bump & grind of particles in motion, or my genes, or my brain chemicals, or...

Not your desires, not guided by your values and needs. You're not doing what you want to do. Ex nihilo, not caused by anything internal and external, you do stuff??

[henry quirk]

You really can't escape from history and biology.

Never said you could, nor did I say that was preferable or possible.

[henry quirk]

Well I have told you in the past, your beliefs around free will sound a lot like compatibilism. I'm not surprised you think what he says sounds like what you believe.

That's cuz the compatibilist is right (free will is real). Where he's wrong makes the difference.

[henry quirk]

You are in a jungle with a machete. You look around. You decide where the best place is to cut. The decision is based on the environment, your ability, your goals, your tools. The path is created by your cutting. It wasn't there before you cut it. When you look back, you say "Yeah, that path was determined. I would not cut anything differently. I thought that it was the best cut to make at that time and place. "

See, that to me, sounds like libertarian free will, not compatibilism or necessitarianism. I decide where to cut, I imagine, I assess, I prepare, I do, I determine, I cause. Not my history or the bump & grind of particles in motion, or my genes, or my brain chemicals, or...

Not your desires, not guided by your values and needs. You're not doing what you want to do. Ex nihilo, not caused by anything internal and external, you do stuff??

[Iwannaplato]

See, that to me, sounds like libertarian free will, not compatibilism or necessitarianism. I decide where to cut, I imagine, I assess, I prepare, I do, I determine, I cause. Not my history or the bump & grind of particles in motion, or my genes, or my brain chemicals, or...

Not your desires, not guided by your values and needs. You're not doing what you want to do. Ex nihilo, not caused by anything internal and external, you do stuff??

What is it that leads you to choose A over B?

[phyllo]

You really can't escape from history and biology.

Never said you could, nor did I say that was preferable or possible.

Actually you did. Here:

I decide where to cut, I imagine, I assess, I prepare, I do, I determine, I cause. Not my history or the bump & grind of particles in motion, or my genes, or my brain chemicals, or...

[henry quirk]

What is it that leads you to choose A over B?

Me. I choose, based on my criteria. I know you wanna dissect it or me down to appetite and impulse and desire and need and want, but I won't becuz I'm not a bundle of appetites, impulses, desires, needs, and wants. I'm a person, a whole. I can't be reduced or dissected. I or I-ness comes before appetite or impulse or desire or need or want.

[henry quirk]

You really can't escape from history and biology.

Never said you could, nor did I say that was preferable or possible.

Actually you did. Here:

I decide where to cut, I imagine, I assess, I prepare, I do, I determine, I cause. Not my history or the bump & grind of particles in motion, or my genes, or my brain chemicals, or...

No. Me, sayin' I cause, my genes or history do not cause is not me sayin' I'm free of or I escaped my genes or my history (and why would I want such a thing?). It's just me sayin' I'm not determined by my genes or history. I am not a product of those; they only inform me.

[phyllo]

No. Me, sayin' I cause, my genes or history do not cause is not me sayin' I'm free of or I escaped my genes or my history (and why would I want such a thing?). It's just me sayin' I'm not determined by my genes or history. I am not a product of those; they only inform me.

Yes, you've said that before.

I'm baffled as to how that could work.

And I'm sure that I'm not the only one.

[Iwannaplato]

What is it that leads you to choose A over B?

Me. I choose, based on my criteria. I know you wanna dissect it or me down to appetite and impulse and desire and need and want, but I won't becuz I'm not a bundle of appetites, impulses, desires, needs, and wants. I'm a person, a whole. I can't be reduced or dissected. I or I-ness comes before appetite or impulse or desire or need or want.

It's not a reduction. We can look at it as a whole state. A state that includes those things and other things like what you just perceived, your intuition, processes of reasoning, that day's temperment, and so on.

But either your actions come out of who you are the moment before you make that choice or they are random. Unless you want to perversely go against your (yes very complicated nature) your choices reflect who you are in that moment before the action is performed/the choice is made.

If the complicated whole that you are in the moment before the decision does not inevitably lead to the choice/action, what does?

[iambiguous]

If it bothers you that people focus on you, well, you'll have to decide whether you hold them responsible for that behavior. I think it's pretty clear you do hold them responsible, but I'm not sure if you've noticed. How you managed to do that might help you in understanding Sam Harris non-free will determinism.

Of course, if, in fact, we do have free will then all of us are responsible for what we post here. But do we? Damned if I know. In other words, for sure. Indeed, given that I am still but an "infinitesimally insignificant speck of existence in the staggering vastness of all there is" how could I possibly know it?

"All there is"?

Start here:

Light travels at approximately 186,000 miles a second. That is about 6,000,000,000,000 miles a year.

The closest star to us is Alpha Centauri. It is 4.75 light-years away. 28,500,000,000,000 miles.

So, traveling at 186,000 miles a second, it would take us 4.75 years to reach it. The voyager spacecraft [just now exiting our solar system] will take 70,000 years to reach it.

To reach the center of the Milky Way galaxy it would take 100,000 light-years.

Or consider this:

"To get to the closest galaxy to ours, the Canis Major Dwarf, at Voyager's speed, it would take approximately 749,000,000 years to travel the distance of 25,000 light years! If we could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 25,000 years!"

The Andromeda galaxy is 2.537 million light years away.

It's just that "here and now", it seems reasonable to me that if the human brain itself is matter, why should it be the exception to the rule? A rule that is encompassed in the laws of matter themselves?

Sure [God or No God] maybe it is. But in the interim 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.

...doesn't go away.

And either Harris agrees that his own arguments are inherently embedded in the only possible reality or he doesn't. But he's still in the same boat all the rest of us are in: "The gap" and "Rummy's Rule".

Not to mention the part revolving around dasein and the Benjamin Button Syndrome if we do have at least some measure of autonomy.

Again, the point some determinists make is this: that it's not what you thought about Harris or what Harris thought about punishment, but whether either one of you was able to opt freely to think something else instead.

Ah, ok, so it doesn't matter to you if you make up stuff about someone you claim to want to understand. Got it.

Note to others:

And that actually has what to do what my point?

Consider the situation of a bear wandering into an area that humans are living in and attacking them. We do not need to think the bear has free will in order to justify tranquilizing it and locking it up if we can or shooting and killing it if we have to.

Of course both bears and human beings are mammals. Over millions of years the first brains became bear brains became our brains. But bear brains are rooted almost entirely in genes [biological imperatives] whereas our brains evolved to encompass memes [social, political and economic narratives] as well. Memes then evolved into morality. And philosophy. And science.

Still, how did our brains come to acquire autonomy?

Did Harris say our brains have acquired autonomy?

Well, if he believes that he lacks autonomy, why doesn't he note that his own argument itself is but another inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality? Instead, from my frame of mind, he seems to opine on punishment in the same manner that the libertarians do. He's arguing that it is reconcilable with determinism...suggesting [to me] that those determinists who argue that it is not are...wrong?

OK, so it doesn't matter to you if you present his position as he does, and yet you want to understand his position. One might wonder if you will every define autonomy. But then that wondering, if expressed, would be rather optimistic about the dialogue.

And yes, it seems to be precisly his point: that determinism does not entail what you think it does. That doesn't mean he believes in free will.

Yes, you may believe that your point here is pertinent to my points above. We'll just have to agree to disagree about that, however. I'm sticking with my assessment above.

You assume his position entails that actually he believes in free will. You never try to demonstrate this. But you present him this way to others.

What I assume is this: that if the "everything we think, feel, say and do, we were never able not to think, feel, say and do" determinists are correct then his own arguments were compelled by his brain, wholly in sync with the laws of matter. Then back to my point above.

Same with definitions. It's not how we define things but whether or not we are free to define anything at all of our own volition.

Do you think determinism means we should let the bear run free in an area where humans live and kill them?

No, determinism as I understand it "here and now" suggests that both bears and human beings do only what they are never able not to do. It's just that bear brains are more...primitive? And that "somehow" when their brains evolved into ape brains evolved into our brains, autonomy came to be a part of our own reality. How? Why?

Then you don't understand determinism nor are you presenting Sam Harris' position. That much can be found out on the internet. He doesn't believe in free will and you seem to be attributing free will to his position.

Back to this then:

Well, if he believes that he lacks autonomy, why doesn't he note that his own argument itself is but another inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality? Instead, from my frame of mind, he seems to opine on punishment in the same manner that the libertarians do. He's arguing that it is reconcilable with determinism...suggesting [to me] that those determinists who argue that it is not are...wrong?

How do you see the free will/determinism issue as changing how we ought to view that issue?

What on Earth does it mean to say we ought to do this instead of that when everything that we do we do because we are never able not to?

You presented it as if what he was saying did not make sense to you unless human brains had autonomy.

And -- click -- it still doesn't. He makes his argument reconciling punishment with determinism as he understands it "here and now". Okay, he comes upon another determinist who points out that given how she understands determinism, his own arguments [like her own arguments] are just another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality. How does he not appear to you to be arguing that his own arguments are actually more reasonable?

Instead, some determinists argue that nothing that any of us argue is more or less reasonable if we are never able to argue other than our brains compel us to. Back to the free will alien pointing this out. Others don't agree, but they are able to opt of their own volition to think it through. And thus, given new experiences or new information and knowledge, they might of their own volition change their minds. Whereas the wholly determined Earthlings might change their minds...but were never able not to.

Then back to Mary and Jane. If Mary is wholly determined by her brain to abort Jane, how is it reasonable for compatibilists to argue that she still ought to be held morally responsible for doing what she could never have not done?

So, you think she cannot be held responsible if determinism is the case. OK.

No, she can be held responsible by some and not by others. But neither those who do or don't were ever able to choose otherwise. Just as Harris was never free to choose otherwise regarding the relationship between determinism and punishment.

We could regard human beings in this way too. Putting them in prison or even killing them doesn’t have to be justified as a ‘deserved punishment’, it could simply be justified as necessary for the defence of society.

Back to Schopenhauer:

"Man can do what he wants, but man can't want what he wants." It was Arthur Schopenhauer who wrote: “Man does at all times only what he wills, and yet he does this necessarily." the philosopher's shirt

In regard to morality, different things are justified by different people. But if all of their justifications are rooted in the only possible reality, how are they all not basically interchangeable as justifications?

Should we run this by the bears?

Well, hey, if he said somewhere he believes in free will determinism, then you certainly got that part right. I could only find him saying determinism. If he's only saying determinism, then your understanding of Harris could be improved by avoiding saying he embraced free will determinism. That could be a tiny start.

All I can do -- click -- is to repeat the point I noted above:

Well, if he believes that he lacks autonomy, why doesn't he note that his own argument itself is but another inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality? Instead, from my frame of mind, he seems to opine on punishment in the same manner that the libertarians do. He's arguing that it is reconcilable with determinism...suggesting [to me] that those determinists who argue that it is not are...wrong?

..."somehow" Harris himself acquired the capacity to embrace "free will determinism".

Yes, it seems that's all you can do. Repeat things you make up.

That's your take on me and what I am doing here. So -- click -- if we do have free will, fine, we can continue to agree to disagree about that.

You assume free will MUST be the case for someone to be held responsible, so you conclude that 'really' Sam Harris believes in free will determinism. You don't actually read his arguments. You don't actually try to demonstrate that his arguments are wrong. You just keep repeating what seems obvious to you, and attribute things to Harris he never said.

Over and again the assumption being that since I don't respond to Harris as you do, it all must come back to me missing his point. Never you. And all I can do then is wait until he or someone else is able to note how he would respond to my point above. I'm merely noting how I construe the meaning of a "free will determinist", not that how I construe it is more reasonable than how others do.

You don't demonstrate that his position must entail human brain 'autonomy'. You state that it does, but never justify this. You expect others to justify positions, but you don't justify yours. You present it as self-evident and attribute a free will determinism to Sam Harris, when this is misrepresenting his position. You state that he is somehow claiming that human brains have an autonomy other matter does not, but you do not demonstrate that he has said this or that it is entailed.

Yes, if this assessment of me allows you to believe that you have a more rational grasp of Harris and determinism than I do, fine, stick with it. But that still doesn't enable me to recognize myself in your own philosophical prejudices. And it's not like either philosophers or scientists have succeeded in subsuming these prejudices in, what, a TOE regarding determinism? Let alone compatibilism with regard to moral responsibility.

You can always ignore us when we make you the issue.

Actually, as a polemicist, I revel in this sort of thing. And, from my entirely prejudiced point of view, I'm convinced that I'm making fools out of the objectivists here. Whether in regard to morality or the Big Questions like free will. In fact, you're the one here who seems to argue that there is one and only one way to understand Harris and determinism. Like IC and his Christian God or henry quirk and his weapons of mass destruction.

Me, I'm no less fractured and fragmented regarding them myself.

Then the part where in regard to bears in a free will world, the discussion shifts from objective facts about them to rooted existentially in dasein subjective opinions about them. For example, is it moral or immoral to put bears in zoos or in circuses? Is it moral or immoral to hunt them...either for food or for trophies?

So, instead of addressing the issue of the bea[r] killing people, you raise other issues.

No, I suggest only that in a determined universe as some understand it, everything that we think, feel, say and do revolves around the extent to which we either do or do not have free will. We don't hold bears morally responsible for killing people. But we do hold people responsible for putting bears in zoos and circuses or hunting them. Why? Because we assume that we were free to opt not to but chose to anyway.

Then the "Grizzly Man" controversy. Some see Timothy Treadwell as the hero for trying to protect the bears while others see him as the villain for encouraging bears to feel comfortable around human beings. And thus endangering them.

And then move even farther afield.

Far afield to you, perhaps. But smack dab in to middle of it to me. Treadwell either opted freely to do what he did in Herzog's documentary, or he was never able not to. Some embraced him or attacked him as they did of their own free will or they were never able to react other than how their brains compelled them to react.

And how can that not make all the difference in the world?

Yup. It's back to making fun of you in future posts.

That works for me. I am always willing to leave it up to others in a free will world to decide for themselves who is being made the bigger fool of here.

[iambiguous]

As a Sam Harris fan, I know for a fact he would, and does, say he doesn't believe in free will.

As though that's my point. It's not what you claim to know about Harris or what he says he believes about free will. It's about whether or not either one of you were ever able to claim or to believe something else instead. Why? Because in a free will world as I understand it, new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge might prompt you to rethink it all and change your mind. Whereas in a wholly determined universe as others understand it, all claims and all beliefs are just more dominoes toppling over onto each other by brains totally in sync with the "immutable laws of matter".

That being said, many of us Sam Harris fans consider him essentially a "compatibilist" who just doesn't like the wording of compatibilism or free will.

And, of course, what he likes or dislikes is also compatible with determinism as he understands it.

Then what he wants or does not want and Schopenhauer's assessment of that.

"Man can do what he wants, but man can't want what he wants." It was Arthur Schopenhauer who wrote: “Man does at all times only what he wills, and yet he does this necessarily." the philosopher's shirt

On the other hand...

"Schopenhauer argues that all human actions are causally necessitated, as are all other events in empirical nature, hence there is no freedom in the sense of liberum arbitrium indifferentiae. However, our sense of responsibility or agency (being the 'doers of our deeds') is nonetheless unshakeable." Cambridge University Press

Same thing? Is our "unshakeable sense of responsibility" but one more inherent manifestation of the psychological illusion of free will?

Psychologically we "just know" we have free will. But psychologically were we ever really free not to "just know" that?

[iambiguous]

You are in a jungle with a machete. You look around. You decide where the best place is to cut. The decision is based on the environment, your ability, your goals, your tools. The path is created by your cutting. It wasn't there before you cut it. When you look back, you say "Yeah, that path was determined. I would not cut anything differently. I thought that it was the best cut to make at that time and place. "

See, that to me, sounds like libertarian free will, not compatibilism or necessitarianism. I decide where to cut, I imagine, I assess, I prepare, I do, I determine, I cause. Not my history or the bump & grind of particles in motion, or my genes, or my brain chemicals, or...

Thanks, henry. I couldn't have said it better myself.

But then the part where Mel Gibson takes the path: https://youtu.be/gSw5l5jMnPM?si=pJZqYRXiYT9I8lwS

Free will, determinism, compatibilism and moral responsibility there and then.

Or, as some here [compelled or not] might suggest, "well, what would you expect from savages?"

[henry quirk]

I'm baffled as to how that could work.

Explain what baffles you.