compatibilism

[Flannel Jesus]

Sounds like a good opportunity for you to deliver the message in a better way than that writer could.

[phyllo]

The universe is nothing but particles. All those particles follow laws of motion. They aren’t free. The brain is made up entirely of those same particles. Therefore, there is nothing in the brain that would give us freedom. These particles also don’t understand anything, they don’t make sense of anything, they don’t grasp the meaning of anything. Since the brain, again, is made up of those particles, it has no power to allow us to grasp meaning or understand anything. But we do understand. We do grasp meaning. Therefore, we are talking about qualities we possess which are not made out of energy. These qualities are entirely non-material.

So, "Einstein" is so stupid that he doesn't know about emergent properties?

Hard to believe.

What Are Emergent Properties?

Emergent properties are properties that become apparent and result from various interacting components within a system but are properties that do not belong to the individual components themselves. The individual components within a system amount to or manifest the property that is emergent. Emergent properties are concepts that are studied within philosophy, the physical sciences, and the social sciences.

Emergent Properties in Philosophy

Within philosophy, the overall concept of emergence is debated heavily. The argument involves the possible dualistic relationship between two characteristics: dependence and autonomy. Dependence means that the emergent property is sustained by lower-level physical entities; i.e., the property does not exist independent of the physical components that manifest it. However, this brings into question to what extent is an emergent property dependent on its underlying components. For example, if human consciousness is dependent on human brain cells, what does that entail for human autonomy or free will. The American philosopher John Searle believed that the concept of emergent properties inherently implies causal reduction or reductionism. Another philosopher named Tony Lawson argued that emergent properties such as the nature of social structures cannot be completely explained by their causal relationship with its components. This brings forth a debate between strong emergence and weak emergence.
Strong and Weak Emergence

Reductionism like Searle's interpretation of emergence is a type of strong emergence, where the entirety of the emergent property can be explained causally and directly with regard to its physical components. That is, the property has no autonomy of its own or characteristics of its own outside its relationship to its emergent connection with its physical components. For example, a person's personality and decisions could be entirely based on their component parts, hormones, brain, past experiences, etc., which ultimately rejects any real autonomy or free will.

Weak emergence argues for the affirmation of both the reality of the entities or features dubbed as emergent properties and the physical components that manifest them. It argues that, though the emergent property is contingent on its base physical components, this does not necessitate pure determinism in that the complexity of the entity can cause emergent properties to emerge from lesser emergent properties which can interact amongst themselves emerging further properties. Subsequently, the highest emergent property of a system can take on a life of its own and have characteristics that cannot be fully explained with regard to the smallest units of the system. Weak emergence is made up of five premises which are debated about in regards to which premises should be upheld and which abandoned:

Supervenient dependence - the occurrence of an emergent property or feature at a given time requires and is contingent on the prior occurrence of a lower-level physical component.
Reality - emergent properties are real, and not imaginary entities, but have a grounding in the physical world.
Efficacy - emergent properties are efficiently causally linked to their component parts in that the emergence of the emergent property happens inherently with its parts.
Distinctness - emergent properties are distinct from their lowest physical components. That is, the lowest physical components do not possess the property individually or by themselves.
Physical causal closure - high-level emergent properties are physically gradient to their lowest-level physical components. That is, the lowest-level, purely-physical components first result in low-level emergent physical properties or effects, before further emergence can result in the manifestation of higher-level emergent properties that are increasingly more distinct from their physical components.

Weak emergence basically calls into question that the autonomy of an emergent property is ultimately dependent on how complex its lower-level components are and therefore how distinct the emergent property is from its physical components. There are many disagreements about the premises of weak emergence where some philosophers reject different premises. For example, eliminativists deny realism and that emergent properties are real and epiphenomenalists deny efficacy. Additionally, substance dualists deny supervenient dependence. However, the weak emergentists resist arguments that conclude weak emergence ultimately falls back into overdetermination by expressing that the emergent property and its lowest physical components are non-competing in that the connection between an emergent property and its components does not mutually exclude itself from autonomy, or distinction.
Emergent Properties Examples

A common example of an emergent property is wetness. "Wetness" can be described as an emergent property that manifests from the interaction between the physical molecular components of a liquid such as molecules of water, with both each other and a surface or piece of matter that water is adhesive toward. That is, what is an individual water molecule (which is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom) does not in itself or by itself possess the property of wetness. Instead, wetness is a higher, or emergent property of the interactions amongst many water molecules with themselves and another piece of matter such as a napkin or shirt.

Wetness fits emergent properties definition as the individual water molecules represented in this system do not individually possess the characteristic of wetness.
Wetness and its relationship with individual water molecules are among emergent properties examples.

https://study.com/learn/lesson/what-are ... mples.html

The world appears to contain diverse kinds of objects and systems—planets, tornadoes, trees, ant colonies, and human persons, to name but a few—characterized by distinctive features and behaviors. This casual impression is deepened by the success of the special sciences, with their distinctive taxonomies and laws characterizing astronomical, meteorological, chemical, botanical, biological, and psychological processes, among others. But there’s a twist, for part of the success of the special sciences reflects an effective consensus that the features of the composed entities they treat do not “float free” of features and configurations of their components, but are rather in some way(s) dependent on them.

Consider, for example, a tornado. At any moment, a tornado depends for its existence on dust and debris, and ultimately on whatever micro-entities compose it; and its properties and behaviors likewise depend, one way or another, on the properties and interacting behaviors of its fundamental components. Yet the tornado’s identity does not depend on any specific composing micro-entity or configuration, and its features and behaviors appear to differ in kind from those of its most basic constituents, as is reflected in the fact that one can have a rather good understanding of how tornadoes work while being entirely ignorant of particle physics. The point generalizes to more complex and longer-lived entities, including plants and animals, economies and ecologies, and myriad other individuals and systems studied in the special sciences: such entities appear to depend in various important respects on their components, while nonetheless belonging to distinctive taxonomies and exhibiting autonomous properties and behaviors, as reflected in their governing special science laws. (The point might be generalized yet further to include human artifacts which are not the object of any natural science, but whose conditions of individuation are tied to human language and practice. But artifacts are set aside in this entry, as these raise distinctive issues that are discussed in the entry on material constitution. Whether there are composites that are neither artifactual nor amenable to scientific analysis is controversial, and if there are, they plausibly will not meet candidate autonomy conditions on emergence. But this will not be explored further here.)

The general notion of emergence is meant to conjoin these twin characteristics of dependence and autonomy. It mediates between extreme forms of dualism, which reject the micro-dependence of some entities, and reductionism, which rejects macro-autonomy.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/

Emergent behavior is behavior of a system that does not depend on its individual parts, but on their relationships to one another. Thus emergent behavior cannot be predicted by examination of a system's individual parts. It can only be predicted, managed, or controlled by understanding the parts and their relationships. Emergent behavior is also known as emergence, emergent property, or “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

All systems are composed of individual parts. Something arranges the parts into a structure. The structure then determines the behavior of the system. System analysis is thus a matter of identifying the relevant structure of the system and its most important parts.

The key insight of the concept of emergent behavior is it's the arrangement of the parts, and not the parts themselves, that makes the big difference. The chemicals in the human body can be purchased for a few dollars. Buying them and mixing them up in a bucket, or even spending a hundred years to arrange them, would not create a person. That's why it's structure that makes all the difference.

Examples of parts are atoms, the parts in a machine, people, and nations. Each of these is a system because it's made up of smaller parts. Each of these parts is in turn a part in a larger system.

Examples of structure are the social contract people enter into to form a government, the molecular structure of a chemical compound like carbon dioxide, and the way your cells are organized into organs, which are then organized into your body.

Examples of emergent behavior are life, the way the sun can serve as an energy source for billions of years, the dysfunctionality of a gang, and our favorite, the environmental sustainability problem.

https://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary ... havior.htm

[Iwannaplato]

I hear ya.

Too bad you focus solely on the delivery and ignore the message...

The universe is nothing but particles. All those particles follow laws of motion. They aren’t free. The brain is made up entirely of those same particles. Therefore, there is nothing in the brain that would give us freedom. These particles also don’t understand anything, they don’t make sense of anything, they don’t grasp the meaning of anything. Since the brain, again, is made up of those particles, it has no power to allow us to grasp meaning or understand anything. But we do understand. We do grasp meaning. Therefore, we are talking about qualities we possess which are not made out of energy. These qualities are entirely non-material.

...anywho, that's me, done, for the evening.

More high-larity tomorrow.

Just want to say that I think this is a vastly better approach. You writing your take on the issue, inspired by the other guy's dialogue or not. It's much easier to work without a third person's dialogue. We can avoid the all the tangents with 'No, what he's saying is.....' 'Well, then he wouldn't have said......' No, extra middleman diversion. No, is Einstein understood and used well in the dialogue?type wandering. Now you said this, and it's at least as clear as the dialogue's version, and we can work on that. We have a core argument and can fuss on that. We don't have to go through that guy, then his version of Einstein...unnecessary layers and digression city.

And we're all set to talk about...emergence, perhaps. Nifty.

[Flannel Jesus]

And we're all set to talk about...emergence, perhaps. Nifty.

Just a funny little coincidence.

[Iwannaplato]

And we're all set to talk about...emergence, perhaps. Nifty.

Just a funny little coincidence.

I wondered actually and assumed that it had already come up, in posts I'd missed.

[Flannel Jesus]

And we're all set to talk about...emergence, perhaps. Nifty.

Just a funny little coincidence.

I wondered actually and assumed that it had already come up, in posts I'd missed.

Yeah I don't think it had, but it's just so contextually relevant to so many things, especially conversations around consciousness (which free will I guess is) that it's pretty likely to come up organically somehow anyway.

I think Phyllo is right as well, the goofball who wrote that dialogue with Einstein probably doesn't have much of a grasp over materialist conceptions of emergence (which I guess Einstein might have pondered, maybe? Not sure if he ever wrote about that)

It should of course be noted that Einstein was a determinist in the fullest sense of the word, and not a compatibilist - he explicitly rejected free will. Not sure why a luddite's dialogue with Strawbert Strawstein is even relevant in this thread.

[phyllo]

And we're all set to talk about...emergence, perhaps. Nifty.

Just a funny little coincidence.

I wondered actually and assumed that it had already come up, in posts I'd missed.

I brought it up in the Christianity thread when talking about mind and consciousness.

HQ participated in that conversation.

I guess that I wasn't convincing.

(Might also have come at ILP. )

[iambiguous]

Free will & Moral responsibility
AQA Ethics

Compatibilism/soft determinism on moral responsibility and punishment

Compatibilists typically attempt to redefine free will to be a human action which is predetermined in a particular way which is consistent with our traditional views on moral responsibility.

Back to that again. Back to those who insist that, first and foremost, what counts here is how we define free will, determinism and compatibilism. As though when we do get around to definitions, free will "somehow" kicks in. Define moral responsibility into existence?

"Mary, you were never able not to abort your unborn baby...but given how I define compatibilism, you are still morally responsible."

Hume, for example, claimed that we should define free will as when an action is determined by internal causes, because it is for actions caused in that way that we have traditionally ascribed praise or blame.

So, for Hume, a person has moral responsibility for actions which are determined by their internal causes, such as their intentions, personality, desires, knowledge, beliefs, etc.

Back again to that, as well: "internal causes".

As long as no one puts a gun to Mary's head, commanding her to "abort the baby or die", she's still "somehow" "responsible" for doing so. Her "intentions, personality, desires, knowledge, beliefs" etc, kick in making her liable for the baby's demise.

A person is not morally responsible for their actions which were determined by external causes, however.

Of course, even here some argue that when another puts a gun to her head commanding her to abort the baby, they too do so only because in the only possible reality they were never able not to.

[iambiguous]

Why Sam Harris is confused about free will
Dan Jones

Harris’s position on free will is straightforward enough. The universe is deterministic, and the behaviour of every entity in the universe is determined by the fixed laws of nature. This includes everything from the motion of atoms and the planets to human behaviour. On this view, according to Harris, there is no such thing as deep responsibility, and humans are no more responsible for their actions (in a deep sense) than mountains are for having avalanches.

Deep responsibilitty?

Okay, in regard to Mary aborting her unborn baby, how would a philosopher go about differentiating deep from shallow responsibility?

Hard determinism and moral responsibility

This is Free Will 101, as Paul Bloom said of another recent essay outlining a position similar to Harris’s. This take on free will sometimes goes by the name of hard determinism, and is defined by two key claims: first, that determinism is true; and second, that free will therefore does not exist. It’s hardly a new or unheard of view; indeed, most discussions of free will start with the problems that hard determinism poses for notions of responsibility, and the moral implications that follow: namely, that if we’re not really responsible for our actions, then how could we be morally culpable for our bad actions, and how could we meaningfully deserve praise for our good actions?

Yep, that's where some hard determinists take this. On the other hand, how many of them will acknowledge in turn that their brains compel them to take it there?

Hard determinism contrasts with the dominant position in contemporary Western philosophy, known as compatibilism. Compatibilist philosophers, such as Dan Dennett, accept that determinism is true, but do not believe that this truth poses the threats to free will and moral responsibility that hard determinists see. That is, compatibilists argue that determinism is compatible with free will and moral responsibility, and so we can meaningfully talk about culpability, guilt, blame, praise and other features of moral judgements.

Okay, so how is what Dennett accepts and believes here not as well an inherent manifestation of the only possible reality?

How is this...

"...compatibilists argue that determinism is compatible with free will and moral responsibility, and so we can meaningfully talk about culpability, guilt, blame, praise and other features of moral judgements..."

...applicable to Mary aborting her unborn baby?

Let's face it -- click -- many refuse to accept the possibility of a world where everything they think and feel and say and do, they were never able not to. Why? Because they would then be unable to pat themselves on the back for all of their accomplishments. Likewise, some might embrace hard determinism because then they could argue that they are not really responsible for all of the things they failed to accomplish. Their lives are in the toilet but it's "beyond their control".

[Iwannaplato]

Back again to that, as well: "internal causes".

As long as no one puts a gun to Mary's head, commanding her to "abort the baby or die", she's still "somehow" "responsible" for doing so. Her "intentions, personality, desires, knowledge, beliefs" etc, kick in making her liable for the baby's demise.

A person is not morally responsible for their actions which were determined by external causes, however.

Of course, even here some argue that when another puts a gun to her head commanding her to abort the baby, they too do so only because in the only possible reality they were never able not to.

This last part is changing the focus and topic.
First you are talking about whether internal causes, even if utterly determined, qualify one for responsibility.
But the concluding reaction is about the other people. Sort of as if someone who thinks Mary is responsible WOULDN'T think those people are responsible for putting the gun to her head.

But of course they would. Unless you can find some determinist or compatiblist who only holds Mary responsible but not them. I can't imagine what philosophical position would justify that.

I'd just like to say also that it often seems just like a given that Mary did something wrong when she got the abortion. I know that at the very least you are fractured and fragmented over that issue, so really you don't assume that abortion is immoral. But it always seems to come off that way.

She's either responsible for doing something bad or she's not because she was compelled by causes.

Again: I am not saying you are asserting it, but I think I've seen this scenario used, perhaps 100 times in relation to FW/deter and it always seems like a given that she would be responsible for a bad act if she had free will, at least.

[iambiguous]

Back again to that, as well: "internal causes".

As long as no one puts a gun to Mary's head, commanding her to "abort the baby or die", she's still "somehow" "responsible" for doing so. Her "intentions, personality, desires, knowledge, beliefs" etc, kick in making her liable for the baby's demise.

A person is not morally responsible for their actions which were determined by external causes, however.

Of course, even here some argue that when another puts a gun to her head commanding her to abort the baby, they too do so only because in the only possible reality they were never able not to.

This last part is changing the focus and topic.
First you are talking about whether internal causes, even if utterly determined, qualify one for responsibility.

If all of the variables in Mary's life, both external and internal, are an inherent manifestation of the only possible reality, how on Earth does responsibility enter into the picture at all.

Still, I admit [over and again] that the problem here may well be me. I'm simply unable to grasp the argument that the compatibilists make.

Though even here [as I note over and again] how can we not then go back to pinning down -- scientifically, philosophically, theologically -- whether my brain itself is or is not entirely behind my failure to do so. It's down the rabbit hole. Why? Because all we have at our disposal here are our brains themselves. And how exactly does the human brain explain itself...to itself? Then "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule". Grasping how the "human condition" fits into the existence of existence itself.

But the concluding reaction is about the other people. Sort of as if someone who thinks Mary is responsible WOULDN'T think those people are responsible for putting the gun to her head.

But of course they would. Unless you can find some determinist or compatibilist who only holds Mary responsible but not them. I can't imagine what philosophical position would justify that.

Bottom line [mine]: if there is a philosophical position that can provide us with the most rational manner in which to grasp compatibilism and moral responsibility, please, by all means, someone here link me to it.

I'd just like to say also that it often seems just like a given that Mary did something wrong when she got the abortion.

Everything is a given in the only possible reality.

I know that at the very least you are fractured and fragmented over that issue, so really you don't assume that abortion is immoral. But it always seems to come off that way.

Actually, my left wing/liberal political prejudices predispose me "here and now" to take that existential leap to a woman's right to choose. But that's no less rooted in dasein. And in the Benjamin Button Syndrome.

She's either responsible for doing something bad or she's not because she was compelled by causes.

Or because she does not believe that abortion is a bad thing.

In fact, given free will, my frame of mind here is what most perturbs the moral objectivists. They want to believe that abortion is either objectively moral or objectively immoral. Then I come along and suggest that, in a No God world, good and bad are just personal opinions. And that personal opinions themselves are derived from the manner in which I construe dasein.

[Flannel Jesus]

Still, I admit [over and again] that the problem here may well be me. I'm simply unable to grasp the argument that the compatibilists make.

Though even here [as I note over and again] how can we not then go back to pinning down -- scientifically, philosophically, theologically -- whether my brain itself is or is not entirely behind my failure to do so.

I mean... yeah, that's it. You got it. You are simply unable to grasp the argument that the compatibilists make. Your brain is entirely behind you're failure to do so.

[henry quirk]

So, "Einstein" is so stupid he doesn't know about emergent properties?

Well, he was a necessitarian.

What Are Emergent Properties?

The world appears to contain diverse kinds of objects and systems—planets, tornadoes, trees, ant colonies, and human persons...

Emergent behavior is behavior of a system that does not depend on its individual parts, but on their relationships to one another. Thus emergent behavior...

(I)f the mind is an emergent property of the brain, it is ontologically completely different. That is, there are no properties of the mind that have any overlap with the properties of brain. Thought and matter are not similar in any way. Matter has extension in space and mass; thoughts have no extension in space and no mass. Thoughts have emotional states; matter doesn’t have emotional states, just matter. So it’s not clear that you can get an emergent property when there is no connection whatsoever between that property and the thing it supposedly emerges from.

The other problem with emergence is even more fundamental: When you think about the wetness of water as an emergent property of water, you are really talking about a psychological state. That is, you are saying, psychologically you didn’t expect water to feel wet but by golly, it does. So that’s emergent. But you can’t explain the psychological state [of perceiving wetness] itself as emergent. -Michael Egnor

[henry quirk]

Now you said this, and it's at least as clear as the dialogue's version...

I didn't write that. It comes from the conversation between the luddite goofball and the dead, stupid necessitarian.

And we're all set to talk about...emergence...

...with your amigos, mebbe. I have no interest in the subject.

[henry quirk]

More high-larity for FJ...

HOW CAN MERE PRODUCTS OF NATURE HAVE FREE WILL?

Michael Egnor

Most of us assume we have free will. But if we live in a universe where everything is totally governed by laws of nature (a deterministic universe), we must ask ourselves an important question: Is our own free will compatible with total control by the laws of nature? There are only two fundamental positions on the issue: Either our free will is compatible with such laws (compatibilism) or it isn’t (incompatibilism).

It’s important to note that this is a logical question, not an empirical question that can be addressed by citing evidence. Does it make sense logically to say that determinism is true and at the same time that free will is real? In this post, I will address only the logical (metaphysical) question, rather than the many legal and political issues regarding determinism and free will.

The nature of the debate has changed in modern times. The historical debate about free will was theological. It centered on divine agency as compared with human agency. For example, did people make a free choice to accept salvation or was God really directing the choice?

The modern debate centers on a scientific understanding of determinism. If determinism is true—that is, if every state of the universe is determined from moment to moment entirely by the laws of nature (physics, chemistry, etc)—how is it possible that we could have free will? It is certainly true that we don’t have control of natural laws—I cannot change gravitation or electromagnetism simply by willing it. Thus, it seems obvious that I cannot have free will in a deterministic universe. It seems obvious then that compatibilism is false and incompatibilism is true.

Here is my view: I believe that genuine (“libertarian”) free will is real and that free will is logically incompatible with determinism in nature.

Among compatibilists, who believe that free will is consistent with determinist laws of nature, some are theists and dualists and some are atheists and materialists. Daniel Dennett, for example, is a famous atheist and materialist who is a compatibilist. Compatibilists usually deal with the problem in logic by invoking definitions of free will that differ from the libertarian idea of free will as a first cause of a series of causes. Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) expressed it thus:

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

Schopenhauer means that our motives are determined but we are (in some sense) free to act on our motives. In Schopenhauer’s sense, free will is essentially autonomy, the ability to act according to internal drives without external constraint.

I think that compatibilists’ efforts to avoid the obvious — that free will and determinism can’t both be true — fail in every instance. If determinism is true, then our actions are determined by natural forces over which we have no genuine control and free will is an illusion.

Compatibilists hold their view, I believe, because they believe that determinism is true and also that we unquestionably have some kind of freedom to act or not act according to our choices. Although most compatibilists have a more or less materialist view of nature, they find it impossible to shake the conviction that free will is real. Stuck between an affirmation of determinism and an affirmation of some kind of genuine freedom of choice, they prefer to twist logic and reason to accommodate their cognitive dissonance, rather than jettison one of their beliefs.

Nonetheless, compatibilism is incoherent. Sophistry notwithstanding, if determinism is real, we are not free.

But is determinism real? That is a question for another post.