I’m still not SURE I agree that a long-term goal is a sign of free will. It is still a choice but a choice that constantly and repeatedly has to be made. I gave my reasons for believing why I think decisions or choices are determined.
As for evolution, the mental exercise of weighing choices is a mechanism nature has chosen that has made humans successful. It is a mischaracterization of what I believe to say that evolution decides which is better, viz. the decision made or the option not taken. The mechanism is what evolution selected for. — Noah Te Stroete
Sure. Pseudorandom numbers are epistemically random. They're still deterministic. Making choices that seem free is what compatibilism is all about. — Relativist
I’m still not SURE I agree that a long-term goal is a sign of free will. It is still a choice but a choice that constantly and repeatedly has to be made. I gave my reasons for believing why I think decisions or choices are determined. — Noah Te Stroete
As for evolution, the mental exercise of weighing choices is a mechanism nature has chosen that has made humans successful. It is a mischaracterization of what I believe to say that evolution decides which is better, viz. the decision made or the option not taken. The mechanism is what evolution selected for. — Noah Te Stroete
I believe consciousness is just as real as matter as I am a spiritual person. — Noah Te Stroete
the choice of a goal against a compulsion is a sign that the compulsion is not determining. Consider an alcoholic who habitually goes into every bar he or she passes. One day they commit to being sober. That commitment makes no physical change. Their brain is still wired the same way. Every time they pass a bar, they still start to walk in. So, they remind themselves of their commitment and, by force of will, walk by — Dfpolis
we need a mechanism for evolutionary selection of the capacity to represent multiple options -- one that translates into reproductive success — Dfpolis
Isn't it more rational to think that the very fact of commitment to the better option is one of the conditions of physical realization — Dfpolis
It would be very coincidental if the one that we judged to be better mentally were also the only one that was physically realizable. Such a parallel relation reminds me of Leibnitz' monadology and would seem to require a providential God. — Dfpolis
So if you make some choices that seem random, this shouldn't be the case: — Terrapin Station
Making a seemingly random choice is an impulse. — Relativist
We can still have moral responsibility in the absence of freewill in the Libertarian sense. — Jamesk
We can still have moral responsibility in the absence of freewill in the Libertarian sense. Strawson's approach is interesting, I haven't read the paper yet but I am interested in what he means by 'truly responsible' and if there is an angle of compatibilism there or not. — Jamesk
But to be truly responsible for how one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, one must have brought it about that one is the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects. And it is not merely that one must have caused oneself to be the way one is, mentally speaking. One must have consciously and explicitly chosen to be the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, and one must have succeeded in bringing it about that one is that way. — The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility
But this choice is not made in a vacuum. The alcoholic might have learned that he was being "punished" for consuming too much alcohol in the sense that he hit rock bottom and things weren't going well for him. — Noah Te Stroete
Isn't the population of the planet evidence of evolutionary success of our characteristics? — Noah Te Stroete
I believe there is a supervenience between the act of commitment and physical realization. But just as the physical realization is deterministic, so are the mental processes. — Noah Te Stroete
A set of properties A supervenes upon another set B just in case no two things can differ with respect to A-properties without also differing with respect to their B-properties. In slogan form, “there cannot be an A-difference without a B-difference”. — Supervenience by Brian McLaughlin & Karen Bennett in SEP
Now this is not to say that you couldn't still be right about all this, but I still have concerns that need to be addressed. — Noah Te Stroete
I'm sure that many who died in the Holocaust had doubts about a providential God. — Noah Te Stroete
None of us have freewill. We are 'all in it together' fate believes in equality. We choose to live in societies. Societies need rules to function. Rules need the attachment of responsibility to function. We agree to the rules so we agree to our share of responsibility. — Jamesk
If A causes B, and B causes C it is still the case that B's existence caused C. If we did not exist, we could not act. — Relativist
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