From your description, I picture two minions inside a brain wrestling to pull a lever towards themselves haha. If that description is fitting for what you have in mind, it is unfitting as a description of the will resisting inclinations. — Samuel Lacrampe

Why? It's the gist of a standard neuroscientific description.

We may be very tempted to do a certain act, but ultimately the decision to act comes from the will. E.g. out of anger, I may be tempted to punch someone, but ultimately the act of punching was my choice. — Samuel Lacrampe

And why would you resist punching the person? Whatever reason you would have for the resisting, that reason is the minion in your mind that acts against the minion of anger. And the result of this battle between minions will be whether you punch or not.

Anyway, hard determinism is, by definition, incompatible with compatibilism. — Bartricks

Yes, and still it seems that the difference between hard determinists and compatibilists is trivial in that they both say that in a deterministic world where all our acts are ultimately completely determined by factors that are out of our control we still have the ability to do what we want - but while compatibilists are satisfied to call this ability "free will", hard determinists refuse to call it so.

Let's say I proposed that everyone is concerned for the welfare of others and does nothing out of self-interest at all. That's known as psychological altruism. Is it plausible? No. — Bartricks

It seems not only implausible but also self-contradictory. What does "concerned" mean? Does it mean that it would make the "concerned" person happy or satisfied if he did something for the welfare of others? In that case the resulting pleasure (happiness or satisfaction) is the person's motive that makes it worth for him to do the act for the welfare of others.

If a person is not motivated by his own pleasure, it means he doesn't care whether to do or not to do the act, or he does the act unintentionally. It doesn't mean that he cares for the welfare of others. Careless and unintentional acts certainly occur but obviously no free will is required for them; any machine can act without care or intention.

Yes, it is highly controversial - it is known as psychological egoism and has virtually no defenders. It's exposed to so many prima facie counterexamples that it just isn't plausible. — Bartricks

What counterexamples? Like the one I gave about self-sacrifice?

That's confused. If compatibilism is true, then hard determinism is false. This thread is about what hard determinism entails. So it must be granted that compatibilism is false, for compatibilism is incompatible with hard determinism (hard determinists are incompatibilists about free will). — Bartricks

Ok, so what is the difference between hard determinism and "ordinary" determinism (compatibilism)? Both views say that all our actions are ultimately completely determined by factors over which we have no control. The only difference seems to be a trivial one: compatibilists say that even in this situation we still have a capability called "free will" (because we can still do what we want) while hard determinists say that this capability is not worthy of being called "free will".

Question begging. We don't have any obligations if hard determinism is true. — Bartricks

We still have our programming, which includes our obligations and everything else that motivates us.

Well, that's a highly controversial and fairly obviously false pyschological thesis. — Bartricks

Is it? If you mean cases where someone sacrifices his own pleasure for someone else or for some honorable principle, don't you think such a sacrifice has given him a good feeling of satisfaction that was worth the sacrifice and therefore prevailed over the sacrificed pleasure?

It's not clear what bearing it has on the current issue - if we're programmed to behave in any way, then we lack free will in that respect and thus will lack any obligations. — Bartricks

We still have free will in the compatibilist sense.

Yes, and cars are not agents and do not have obligations. — Bartricks

Obligations are just a special word for "programming" when referring to humans. We are driven by obligations like machines are driven by their programming. And we can fail to fulfill our obligations like machines can fail to work according to their programming (because of a malfunction, some external interference or a flaw in the program).

My car is not obliged to start when I turn the key, is it? — Bartricks

The car is programmed to start when you turn the key, like we are programmed to fulfill our obligations.

To recognize that there are reasons to do things involves recognizing that one has options - that there are alternative possibilities available and thus one needs to consider what one has most reason to do or believe. — Bartricks

Yes, we choose the option that seems to maximize our pleasure and minimize our pain (according to our evaluation). We are programmed that way. An autonomous car is programmed to stop at red lights and go at green lights; it too has options when reaching a crossroad: stop, go, turn left, turn right...

Second, it is manifest to the reason of most that if you ought to do something, then you can do it. And if you ought not to do x, then you can refrain from doing it. — Bartricks

An autonomous car is programmed to stop at red lights and usually it can do it. But if it malfunctions it can keep moving.

What you call "obligations" can be rephrased as "programming", which doesn't require free will.

Drives towards pleasure and away from pain are constituted by forces in the brain (neurotransmitters, hormones, electrical signals). Even if we suppose there are also non-physical forces acting in the brain, these non-physical forces must cause physical forces in the brain in order to control the behavior of our physical bodies. So all physical acts of will, whether of physical or non-physical origin, are immediately caused by physical forces in the brain and are dependent on the strengths of these forces. If free will is something non-physical, then in order to overcome some physical force in the brain it must cause a greater counter-force in the brain.

Let's clarify what you are saying. Free will can overcome an internal force in the brain, such as inclination to fall asleep, no matter how strong the internal force is, but only up to a certain point of strength of the internal force. If the internal force is stronger than this point, free will cannot overcome it. Is that what you mean? If so, why would there be such a point in the strength of the internal force?

Inclination is an "internal force", not in the sense of a physical force F=ma, but a drive, desire, or temptation. Free will can resist temptations no matter how strong, but not physical forces like lifting boulders. Passing out from exhaustion would be more like a physical force. — Samuel Lacrampe

Inclination is not a physical force? But inclination to fall asleep is a physical force in the brain. All physical forces give acceleration to mass and their strength is equal to acceleration x mass.

Yes, as along as that the drive to sleep is merely an inclination and not a necessity. E.g. if you pass out from exhaustion, then this is too strong to be an inclination. — Samuel Lacrampe

Why would it matter how strong an inclination is if free will is not a force? You said that free will is not a force and can choose against all inclinations no matter their intensity.

Correct. Inclination is any internal force that drives, though does not compel, you to do something. — Samuel Lacrampe

You think that the power of will can overcome any inclination to sleep?

But anyway, to bring this back to the topic at hand: hard determinism entails that we lack all obligations, as free will is surely something obligations require? — Bartricks

Why? Obligations are just something we want to fulfill to avoid pain of punishment or conscience. They seem compatible with the fact that ultimately all our acts are completely determined by factors that are out of our control.

So if no woman wants to procreate, you think rape is now right? My reason says that'd be wrong.
The human species isn't a human. It doesn't die and you can't kill it and it has no interests. It does not experience pleasure or pain and it has no will. — Bartricks

Ok, but if mankind went extinct it would cancel the opportunity for further human experiences and their evolution. Surely it would prevent a lot of experiences of pain but also of pleasure, which are apparently more prevalent (since most people value life more than death).

It's about as self evident to reason that rape is wrong as that 2 + 2 = 4. Thus some acts are wrong. — Bartricks

I agree that rape is wrong (except perhaps for extreme situations where it would be the only way to enable survival of mankind by reproduction). But I have a reason for thinking so: rape causes needless suffering to the woman. I think that the facts of "right" and "wrong" are derived from the experience of pain and pleasure.

Maybe you think nothing is right or wrong in reality. Then you're silly and confused. Silly because there's no reasonable way to arrive at that conclusion. — Bartricks

Just wondering, in what way did you arrive at the opposite conclusion?

Free will is not another force that we add to sum up among the other inclinations. Rather, free will can always choose against all the inclinations, no matter their intensity. That's what makes it free. — Samuel Lacrampe

What is an "inclination"? For example, if someone feels sleepy does he have an inclination to fall asleep?

Even with determinism, pain is still painful and joy is joyful, and we all want to avoid the former and have the latter, by definition. But the world is complicated and it is not always clear how to achieve that. What we expected would bring joy actually brought pain, and what we expected to bring pain brought joy. Sometimes it may be necessary to endure some pain in order to achieve joy. It seems that relationships and society need to be regulated by certain rules, formal or informal, in order to be joyful rather than painful. Joys and pains of different individuals affect each other. The concept of "responsibility" is a tool to help us pay attention to the social rules and follow them. The appeal to "free will" is a tool to help us internalize the rules (accept them as our own) rather than taking them as imposed on us, because internalized rules motivate us more effectively and autonomously. I see ethics as a theory of how to maximize joy and minimize pain in relationships between sentient beings. Determinism pushes us to learn that theory, based on the fact that we want joy rather than pain.

If this is what Platonists believe, then where do they think that these objectcs exist? If it's not inside our physical realm then in what realm do these objects exist and do they move inside of it? — Prishon

And where does our physical realm exist? If it is embedded in a larger space, where does the larger space exist?

Space is just one of many mathematical objects and all mathematical objects exist in virtue of being logically consistent and in mutual relations, of which spatial relations are just a special kind of relation. And by the way, time is just a special kind of space, at least according to theory of relativity.

We can distinguish two kinds of mathematical objects: concrete and abstract. For example, there are concrete triangles (like concrete "give way" road signs) and one abstract triangle, which is a property instantiated in all concrete triangles. The Platonist objects are the abstract ones. Some people think that the abstract objects don't "really exist", that they are just words or ideas in our heads. Yet these words or ideas express an objective similarity between concrete objects, so the abstract objects can also be understood as being in a sense "dispersed" in concrete objects.

Now the question: Do we share at least the fundamental logical rules of inference with these beings, who perceive so differently? — Mersi

Yes. If these beings acknowledge that every thing is what it is and is not what it is not, they will have the same logic as us. (If they didn't acknowledge this basic fact they would have died out quickly, assuming that their nervous system would even allow them not to acknowledge it, which seems doubtful.)

So they would acknowledge the basic logical principle of identity/non-contradiction. Thus they would identify different objects and their similarities, their different and shared properties, and would be able to group objects based on their shared properties. By communicating with each other, these beings would form propositions affirming or denying that certain objects have certain properties.

The family is more communist than capitalist in its internal relations; from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. — unenlightened

Right, and it works, but it's not easy to widen the circle of such love and compassion. The good news is, as Steven Pinker has documented, that human history seems to move in the direction of less violence. In the long term, mankind is getting more integrated and cooperative. Common religion, ideology or nationalism can help to some degree. Social mechanisms like laws, education, trade and workplace force us to be cooperative and considerate toward strangers, and we gradually internalize these attitudes. Mental capacity and flexibility seem to be important too, to be able to understand different people and interact with them fruitfully. The more people develop these traits the more they will be able to function like a family in larger groups.

In the future, central regulation of economy will increase because of automation, biotechnologies and climate change. More income will need to be redistributed from those who own sophisticated/AI machines to those who lost their jobs from automation so that the unemployed can live a decent life or retrain for new jobs if possible; or some of that machinery will be owned by the state, which will distribute the profits to the population. Biotechnologies will need to be regulated, similarly to healthcare, so that people have fair access to technological enhancements of their bodies and minds to prevent the emergence of a class of biologically inferior humans, or at least care is provided for those for whom such enhancements are not (yet) available. Climate change is already forcing governments to provide support for transition to technologies with less greenhouse gas emissions.

Such collective actions are necessary because the alternative would be social unrest and wars.

But what is it for? Why is this glob of matter reluctant to be at the full mercy of the universe around it? — Benj96

The organism sustains itself because it happened to evolve properties that sustain it (the self-preservation instinct). Organisms that didn't happen to evolve such properties died. But it is usually assumed in the definition of "organism" that it has properties that sustain it, at least to some extent.

Obamacare isn't "collectivist." — Xtrix

Well, it's funded with increased taxes and mandates insurers to accept those with preexisting conditions without extra charging.

And rose again in the 1970s, and which has dominated corporate and political governance ever since. From the boardrooms of Wall Street, to Capitol Hill, to the White House, this ideology of "free enterprise" has prevailed. — Xtrix

Interspersed with collectivist stuff like Obamacare and now Biden's infrastructure bill.

The idea of a centrally planned economy was destroyed in 1989. The idea of free markets was destroyed even earlier, in 1929. Since then most of the world has realized that you need a vehicle that can turn both left and right.

Well even if that is the case, that still leaves the question of why there was a Big Bang in the first place. — HardWorker

My view is that the Big Bang occurred because it was logically possible and logical possibility = existence.

Literally the article says:

An object can be potentially F and potentially not F, but it cannot be actually F and actually not F at the same time. — javi2541997

It seems more natural to relate "at the same time" to "be" rather than to "object":

An object can be potentially F and potentially not F, but it cannot be actually F and actually not F at the same time.

I agree with you that real contradictions are impossible. If someone claims a contradiction as real, say p & ~p, all we have to do to resolve it is to say p from one angle, ~p from another angle but not the case that p & ~p from the same angle. The p & ~p was only an apparent contradiction. — TheMadFool

Ok.

Aristotle meant to the object itself not the act of belonging to another.

The “same thing” that belongs must be one and the same thing and it must be the actual thing and not merely its linguistic expression. For example, it is possible for someone to be a pitcher and not a pitcher where “pitcher” in the first instance refers to a baseball player and in the second to a jug that can hold beer — javi2541997

I don't see that the article attributes the phrase "in the same respect" to the object. It seems more likely that "in the same respect" refers to the act of belonging.

That's wordplay. — TheMadFool

Insistence on the same perspective was part of the meaning of a contradiction already in ancient Greece:

Aristotle's law of noncontradiction states that "It is impossible that the same thing can at the same time both belong and not belong to the same object and in the same respect."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contradiction
(emphasis mine)

There are no genuine contradictions. That's the law :point: The Law of Noncontradiction ~(p &~p), only apparent contradictions that can be resolved with anekantavada (many-sidedness/perspectivism). — TheMadFool

You can still formulate a genuinely contradictory proposition by insisting on the same perspective but such a proposition would not correspond to any object in reality.

In what kind of space are there square circles? I'm curious. — TheMadFool

In the space with taxicab metric that fishfry mentioned. You may object that that is actually not a circle but he did use the standard definition of a circle: a set of points with a fixed distance from some point.

The point I' making is that there are only apparent contradictions, not real ones — TheMadFool

A genuinely contradictory object cannot exist so any object in reality can be only seemingly contradictory.

But a circle and a square are NOT defined as each other's opposites, nor are they mutually exclusive at all. — fishfry

In Euclidean space they are mutually exclusive and I tacitly assumed this kind of space. Thanks for pointing out that there are also spaces with such a metric that a circle looks like a square.

Addendum

If a contradiction is being sought for, it's this: As litewave pointed out, some of us will observe T' as a square (S) and others will observe T' as as a circle (~S). Both parties are right: Square Circle. — TheMadFool

Square circle as a genuinely contradictory object would look like a square and like a circle from the same perspective (and at the same time and under all other same circumstances). Such an object cannot exist.

SO for any proposition P you have:

P is true IFF it is consistent and identical with itself

Consistent with what? "Lightwave wrote this post" is consistent, but not true - I wrote this post. — Banno

This proposition describes me (Litewave) inconsistently by referring to me, a person who doesn't have the property of "having written this post", and affirming that I have the property of "having written this post". It is as if you wrote that "Someone who didn't write this post wrote this post", or "A circle is not a circle". By affirming that I have and don't have the same property, the proposition is inconsistent and therefore does not correspond to reality. It defines me as a thing that is not identical to itself and such a thing cannot exist.

That's the very definition of a property in first-order logic. First order logic is extensional by design.

So you using a non-standard interpretation? — Banno

As far as I know, property in first-order logic is regarded as something that can be had or satisfied by an individual and it is not necessary to interpret property as a collection.

Arn't mathematical statements true in all possible worlds? — Banno

Some are, for example "1+1=2" (I hope). Some are not, for example "Sum of interior angles of a triangle is always 180°."

We agree that it is true in this possible world that you wrote the post; it is not true in some other possible world? — Banno

It is not true that in some other possible world I wrote the post.

So do you think mathematical statements are true in this possible world because they are true in some possible world? — Banno

Only if one of those possible worlds is this world.

Then if it is true that in some possible world you dd not write that post, wouldn't it be true in this possible world, too? — Banno

It would be true in this world that I did not write the post in a different world in which I did not write it.

...and yet to understand empty sets one needs all the paraphernalia of set theory. SO if they are to form the "simples" of a logical system, it is only by presuposing set theory. Which is not all that simple. — Banno

Set theory is based on the simple and self-evident fact that objects constitute a collection. A collection can be defined by listing all its parts or by specifying their common property. The problem with defining a collection by the common property of its parts is that such a definition may be inconsistent, so this kind of definition has been narrowed by certain axioms that select certain kinds of collections. It doesn't mean that some axiomatizations of set theory are correct and others wrong; they just select different kinds of collections.

..and? That does not explain the "correspondence" in the correspondence theory of truth. Indeed, while correspondence is about what is the case, you've moved to affirmation, which is distinct, and quite different. One can after all affirm things that are not true. — Banno

Affirmation is in the nature of propositions. Proposition is a tool of communication, which by affirming something provides information. If a proposition affirms that a certain object has a certain property and the object in reality does not have the property, then the proposition does not correspond to reality and thus is not true.