compatibilism

[iambiguous]

So, you were sort of parodying him?

No. I'm still trying to get him to recognize the error of this ways.

If Mary has no control, then nobody has any control.

Yet he posts as if somebody should be doing something differently ... the people judging Mary, for example.

Note to nature:

By all means, get him to recognize the error of his way.

[phyllo]

Okay, here's the challenge:

Experientially and experimentally, come up with hard evidence that you freely came up with hard evidence in order to demonstrate that iambiguous freely presented his version or was never able to not present his version.

I'm discussing what you are doing and not whether you are doing it freely or not.

I don't care if it's being done freely.

Same thing.

Experientially and experimentally, come up with hard evidence that you freely came up with hard evidence in order to demonstrate what responsibility is...and not just whatever the laws of nature compel your brain to compel you to claim it is.

Bringing it all back around to Mary and Jane.

Same thing. I don't care if I or you came up with anything freely.

Right, like those who restrain him were not in turn never able not to restrain him. Again, back to this...

Missing the point.

Free-will or determinism, people are going to have to deal with the killer's actions.

Call it moral responsibility or call it something else.

Call it punishment or call it reeducation.

[Iwannaplato]

So, you were sort of parodying him?

No. I'm still trying to get him to recognize the error of this ways.

If Mary has no control, then nobody has any control.

Yet he posts as if somebody should be doing something differently ... the people judging Mary, for example.

Could you sum up the error in a sentence or two+

[BigMike]

The new book "No Free Will: But So Much More" says there is no such thing as free will. Instead, it says that the logic of evolution, the idea of "survival of the fittest" forces us to find the best way to meet our Maslowian needs. Since it seems like the best choice, we decide to do it. We can't make it the best just by wanting it to be. And since everything we do is motivated by basic needs, our will is controlled by logic; it is not free.

[Iwannaplato]

Free-will or determinism, people are going to have to deal with the killer's actions.

'Have to' might be confusing. But they will likely want to, and will deal with the killer, given his or her actions.

Call it moral responsibility or call it something else.

Yes, that word responsibility can get played around with, but of course people will want to, most likely, segregate that person from others and/or possibly kill them. They will want to move the threat that that person is. They will also want other, potential killers to see what happens to this killer and this perhaps will cause them to reconsider murder.

In a deterministic universe the murderer may not have free choice, in some ultimate sense, but they are still what they are. So, they get a response to what they are.

Call it punishment or call it reeducation.

or operant conditioning (to satisfy the determinists that we are not claiming to be dealing with some ultimately completely free entity, necessarily).

[Iwannaplato]

I don't care if it's being done freely.

I am not directly responding to how you probably meant this, but using it as a jumping off point.
Whether there is free will or not, we can still recognize degrees of freedom. Perhaps a better word might be versatility.
If everything that suprises you seems threatening and you react with aggression, you will react the same way to lots of stimuli/situations. You have a single response type to a wide range of situations.
Another person might have a quick evaluation moment around what kind of suprise this is. Immediate threat, oddity, unthreating something, possibly threatening but not immediately (now I am safe), exciting, lovely. So when something surprising happens they do some kind of evaluating (doesn't have to conscious, though it could involve conscious processes also. This person is more versatile and I think in everyday speech we could call them freer. They can react to situations/stimuli in a more nuanced way and will have a more complicated set of responses over time, allowing all sorts of types of learning that the first person cannot engage in.

Also, outward. A person might generally look at every person they encounter in terms of power/threat and every situation in this way. So, they want to dominate and use the other person or situation, to gain power and/or neutralize threats. Here I am looking at the person from an active perspective, rather than reactive as I did above.
Compare that person who moves outward with a range of desires: curiostiy, seeking possible intimacy, looking for useful information/connections not just around power...etc.
This person is more versatile and in everyday speech could be seen as more free. They have more ways of relating to situations and people. They have a wider range of goals.

Now here I have used what some would consider a negative focus: power. I don't think it's negative, but if it's the only one you've got, it's a problem. You could also have a problem with desires that seem positive, if they are overpriortized or the only one you have.

If your only goal is to get others to like you, it's a problem. As one example.

I know none of this is groundbreaking, but I think it underlies a conflation that can happen in discussions of free will vs. determinism. There is still a way to be freer than others. And you can actually train yourself and others to increase versatility. Yes, perhaps this was all determined in the Bib Bang, but here we are, in the middle. You can crawl into bed and think there is no point if you do not have free will. Or you can still try to make the best of things.

Some people think that determinism means one might as well give up, not try, not seek.

they may not say this outright but it is implicit in various ways.

There is no ground for that position.

(and I can see that you do not have that position)

[phyllo]

What you're saying fits in with this quote :

Only the educated are free. -Epictetus

The educated are aware of what is in their control and what is not, what to worry about and what not to worry about, how they are being pushed and pulled by people and events and by their own personal characteristics. They are able to respond more effectively than the uneducated.

Education is a life-long process so they also know that they are going to make mistakes and that they are not perfect.

Education in this case is education in philosophy.

The stoics were compatibilists so they were no denying the role determinism plays in life. But one is not helpless or compelled to in a specific way by external forces.

[Iwannaplato]

What you're saying fits in with this quote :

Only the educated are free. -Epictetus

Yes, especially if we take educated in a very broad sense.

The educated are aware of what is in their control and what is not, what to worry about and what not to worry about, how they are being pushed and pulled by people and events and by their own personal characteristics. They are able to respond more effectively than the uneducated.

That sounds a bit like the Serenity Prayer.

The stoics were compatibilists so they were no denying the role determinism plays in life. But one is not helpless or compelled to in a specific way by external forces.

External forces would only be part of the forces.

[bobmax]

More than determinism, it is the law of causality as such that denies free will.

Because the question is whether I am just an effect or not.

If I am exclusively an effect, I have no freedom to want.
Because I want what the causes, which made me be, want.

But if I am not just an effect, what is this part of me that could then be free?
Do I have to appeal to something transcendent that confirms my being free?

It would seem like not wanting to look at reality.

If there were no evil there would be no problem. I would live in the earthly paradise.
But the evil is there.

And evil is just what shouldn't be there.

Then I can feel compassion for this painful world, which is not what it should be.
And feel responsible for it.

That true freedom is hidden in that compassion?

[Iwannaplato]

More than determinism, it is the law of causality as such that denies free will.

What is the difference between determinism and the law of causality?

Because the question is whether I am just an effect or not.

If you are only an effect, then everything is only an effect and there are no causes.

If I am exclusively an effect, I have no freedom to want.
Because I want what the causes, which made me be, want.

You wouldn't need freedom to want. You'd want.

[bobmax]

More than determinism, it is the law of causality as such that denies free will.

What is the difference between determinism and the law of causality?

For determinism the effect can be predetermined, at least in theory.
While for indeterminism the effect cannot be predetermined, not even in theory.

But both are under the law of cause and effect.
Both have nothing to do with randomness.

Because the question is whether I am just an effect or not.

If you are only an effect, then everything is only an effect and there are no causes.

Is the cause that I am an effect or not?

If we separate the cause from its still being an effect, what are we saying?

If I am exclusively an effect, I have no freedom to want.
Because I want what the causes, which made me be, want.

You wouldn't need freedom to want. You'd want.

Yes, no free will.

[Belinda]

More than determinism, it is the law of causality as such that denies free will.

What is the difference between determinism and the law of causality?

For determinism the effect can be predetermined, at least in theory.
While for indeterminism the effect cannot be predetermined, not even in theory.

But both are under the law of cause and effect.
Both have nothing to do with randomness.

Because the question is whether I am just an effect or not.

If you are only an effect, then everything is only an effect and there are no causes.

Is the cause that I am an effect or not?

If we separate the cause from its still being an effect, what are we saying?

If I am exclusively an effect, I have no freedom to want.
Because I want what the causes, which made me be, want.

You wouldn't need freedom to want. You'd want.

Yes, no free will.

Bobmax seems to confuse predetermination and prediction. The best predictions are probable and the worst predictions are sheer nonsense.

A predetermined decision pertains to men and/or God, and predetermination is nothing to do with natural determinism, still less so-called "Free Will".

I agree with Bobmax's intentions but not with his terminology

[Walker]

For determinism the effect can be predetermined, at least in theory.
While for indeterminism the effect cannot be predetermined, not even in theory.

But both are under the law of cause and effect.
Both have nothing to do with randomness.

Determinism: everything has a cause. Knowing every cause means knowing every effect. In theory, the patterns of Brownian motion are determined by a cause. In reality, humans lack the capacity to predict the patterns of Brownian motion, therefore in reality, Brownian motion is random. The same can be said for assigning cause to human action, although that inability to predict pattern is explained by "free will," which as far as explaining cause goes, explains about as much as Brownian motion explains.

This mostly if not all seems to agree with what you conclude from your observations.

[bobmax]

What is the difference between determinism and the law of causality?

For determinism the effect can be predetermined, at least in theory.
While for indeterminism the effect cannot be predetermined, not even in theory.

But both are under the law of cause and effect.
Both have nothing to do with randomness.

If you are only an effect, then everything is only an effect and there are no causes.

Is the cause that I am an effect or not?

If we separate the cause from its still being an effect, what are we saying?

You wouldn't need freedom to want. You'd want.

Yes, no free will.

Bobmax seems to confuse predetermination and prediction. The best predictions are probable and the worst predictions are sheer nonsense.

A predetermined decision pertains to men and/or God, and predetermination is nothing to do with natural determinism, still less so-called "Free Will".

I agree with Bobmax's intentions but not with his terminology

You're right, I think the use of the term "predetermination" is incorrect.

However, even "prediction" does not seem suitable.

Because prediction is part of both determinism and indeterminism.

Perhaps it is better to see it towards the past.
Once an event has occurred, its causes can be determined (determinism) or not (indeterminism).

But both are under necessity, that is, the law of cause and effect.

The probability of the prediction falsely suggests that there is a random phenomenon.
But is not so.

Probability is simply a way to handle events that cannot be uniquely determined.
But which are still subject to necessity.

Because the actual randomness is the eruption of Chaos into the Cosmos.

A possibility that can never be completely excluded, but which would lead to our being lost.

[bobmax]

For determinism the effect can be predetermined, at least in theory.
While for indeterminism the effect cannot be predetermined, not even in theory.

But both are under the law of cause and effect.
Both have nothing to do with randomness.

Determinism: everything has a cause. Knowing every cause means knowing every effect. In theory, the patterns of Brownian motion are determined by a cause. In reality, humans lack the capacity to predict the patterns of Brownian motion, therefore in reality, Brownian motion is random. The same can be said for assigning cause to human action, although that inability to predict pattern is explained by "free will," which as far as explaining cause goes, explains about as much as Brownian motion explains.

This mostly if not all seems to agree with what you conclude from your observations.

Yes. Clarifying the situation we are in, at the end of all our reasoning I think we should be gripped by a poignant melancholy for what could have been but was not.

And our attention can only turn to ourselves.

Who am I then?