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>So people only claim to be incompatibilists when they confuse determinism with fatalism. Regardless, they tended to agree strongly with Compatibilist moral rea

>So people only claim to be incompatibilists when they confuse determinism with fatalism. Regardless, they tended to agree strongly with Compatibilist moral reasoning. I pretty strongly disagree with this statement. I am not a compatibilist, but I am fully aware of the differences between fatalism and determinism. If I believed in fatalism then I would believe that If am fated to recover or die from an illness, it would happen regardless of whatever actions I take, etc. With determinism I believe the outcome from whatever illness I receive will depend on the illness, the actions taken, my overall health, etc. etc. etc., all the way back through the causal chain at the start of the universe. I believe everything adheres to causality. Compatabilists and I would both agree that we cannot determine our motivations, but then we would disagree if there is "free will" in the choice we make based on those motivations. My brain is a physical entity, ruled by the laws of physics. Every decision I make is ruled by those laws, because my brain cannot work in any other way. If we had perfect knowledge of how the brain works (and I believe this is possible), you can boil down the thought process of "I have a memory of stubbing my toe and it hurt, so I will make the conscious effort to avoid stubbing my toe" to the composite physics that result in said thought process. Given all of the same inputs, the same outputs will come in to play. This somewhat ignores the randomness of the quantum world, but I don't think it particularly effects the outcome - if time could be rewound to the start of the universe, and the play button pushed, quantum effects would likely mean that we do not end up with the same universe we have today, but I don't see how having randomness fundamentally would mean that I as a human being have any increase in my ability to come to a decision. The inputs would be different, if I were to exist at all, but I would still be bound by the same laws of physics that determine how my brain functions. Compatabilitists and I sharing similar ideas about moral reasoning doesn't change that. My "moral reasoning" is that things like the laws we create are still all based on causality, and that the actions people take are in turn causally related to the inputs we give them, such as the laws. Changing this inputs results in different outputs when considering things like potential futures, which are then inputs into the decision making process, etc. But I also believe that it doesn't really matter, as far as day to day life goes. At current, humans lack the ability to perceive life in such a way that we can figure out how any of that shit actually works. I can behave and think in a way that is similar enough to how free will would work that it doesn't matter. To change this, we would need perfect knowledge of how basically everything works, have the ability to measure every necessary input in the system, and calculate the outcomes. If we are ever able to reach that point, I'm pretty sure it'll be so far into the future it's nothing worth worrying myself about.

naasking 8y ago
You've written a lot of text, most of which I might agree with, but you haven't demonstrated why any of it precludes the existence of free will. Compatibilism is specifically the position that free will is compatible with deterministic agents. Merely stating you disagree that this qualifies as free will isn't particularly compelling. Compatibilism makes sense of our moral language, we clearly have the free will described by Compatibilism, and it's strongly predictive of our moral reasoning as the paper I linked shows. That seems to describe what most people mean when they use the term "free will" quite well, just like "day job" describes quite well what I do every weekday from 9AM to 5PM.
- cthalupa 8y ago
  >but you haven't demonstrated why any of it precludes the existence of free will. Except I don't need to. Compatibilists haven't proven the existence of free will, so the null hypothesis still holds true, at least for now. Throughout the comments here you seem to continually rely on the fact that professional philosophers strongly agree with the idea of compatabilism, but from my point of view, it doesn't really matter what philosophers think. It's a matter of what the science says. I don't see any real incompatibilities with moral reasoning between a universe where there is no free will and one where it is compatible with determinism, so saying that compatbilist moral reasoning is predictive of how we generally behave is not an argument for free will.
  - naasking 8y ago
    > I don't see any real incompatibilities with moral reasoning between a universe where there is no free will and one where it is compatible with determinism, so saying that compatbilist moral reasoning is predictive of how we generally behave is not an argument for free will. Prove that "a universe without free will but behaviourally indistinguishable from one that features Compatibilism" is actually a coherent definition/non-empty set. Compatibilism entails that any universe featuring intelligent agents acting on reasons and capable of understanding and learning from their actions will have free will. So basically, you're claiming that a universe that features such intelligent agents is indistinguishable from a universe that has no such intelligent agents. > Except I don't need to. Compatibilists haven't proven the existence of free will, so the null hypothesis still holds true, at least for now. I honestly don't understand what confusion would lead you to make such a statement. Null hypotheses are simply not relevant to this sort of question. What populations are you comparing here exactly? Secondly, Compatibilism describes exactly what humans do because it's compatible with both deterministic and indeterministic worlds (see point above re:universes with Compatibilism). Compatibilist free will clearly exists in our universe virtually by definition, ie. we are clearly intelligent agents acting on reasons and capable of understanding and learning from our choices. > Throughout the comments here you seem to continually rely on the fact that professional philosophers strongly agree with the idea of compatabilism Because most people don't have the requisite knowledge to evaluate possibilities that require profound domain knowledge. Would you be similarly derisive if I referenced the medical consensus when wading through a health debate?

naasking 8y ago

You've written a lot of text, most of which I might agree with, but you haven't demonstrated why any of it precludes the existence of free will. Compatibilism is specifically the position that free will is compatible with deterministic agents. Merely stating you disagree that this qualifies as free will isn't particularly compelling. Compatibilism makes sense of our moral language, we clearly have the free will described by Compatibilism, and it's strongly predictive of our moral reasoning as the paper I linked shows. That seems to describe what most people mean when they use the term "free will" quite well, just like "day job" describes quite well what I do every weekday from 9AM to 5PM.

cthalupa 8y ago
>but you haven't demonstrated why any of it precludes the existence of free will. Except I don't need to. Compatibilists haven't proven the existence of free will, so the null hypothesis still holds true, at least for now. Throughout the comments here you seem to continually rely on the fact that professional philosophers strongly agree with the idea of compatabilism, but from my point of view, it doesn't really matter what philosophers think. It's a matter of what the science says. I don't see any real incompatibilities with moral reasoning between a universe where there is no free will and one where it is compatible with determinism, so saying that compatbilist moral reasoning is predictive of how we generally behave is not an argument for free will.
- naasking 8y ago
  > I don't see any real incompatibilities with moral reasoning between a universe where there is no free will and one where it is compatible with determinism, so saying that compatbilist moral reasoning is predictive of how we generally behave is not an argument for free will. Prove that "a universe without free will but behaviourally indistinguishable from one that features Compatibilism" is actually a coherent definition/non-empty set. Compatibilism entails that any universe featuring intelligent agents acting on reasons and capable of understanding and learning from their actions will have free will. So basically, you're claiming that a universe that features such intelligent agents is indistinguishable from a universe that has no such intelligent agents. > Except I don't need to. Compatibilists haven't proven the existence of free will, so the null hypothesis still holds true, at least for now. I honestly don't understand what confusion would lead you to make such a statement. Null hypotheses are simply not relevant to this sort of question. What populations are you comparing here exactly? Secondly, Compatibilism describes exactly what humans do because it's compatible with both deterministic and indeterministic worlds (see point above re:universes with Compatibilism). Compatibilist free will clearly exists in our universe virtually by definition, ie. we are clearly intelligent agents acting on reasons and capable of understanding and learning from our choices. > Throughout the comments here you seem to continually rely on the fact that professional philosophers strongly agree with the idea of compatabilism Because most people don't have the requisite knowledge to evaluate possibilities that require profound domain knowledge. Would you be similarly derisive if I referenced the medical consensus when wading through a health debate?