Wayfarer,
Quoting from my paper:
A conceptual space is the set of ideas onto which we normally project experience. The Fundamental Abstraction is a generally useful narrowing of mental focus which can limit our conceptual space. An inadequate conceptual space can create problematic representational artifacts, such as the pre-relativistic notion of simultaneity. While hard to see from within a tradition, representational problems can be identified by comparing diverse cultural, disciplinary and historical perspectives.
...
The human mind has limited representational resources. Eric of Auxerre (841-76) was per­haps the first to recognize that these limitations force the resort to abstract, universal con­cepts. Our working memories can only maintain 5-9 ‘chunks’ of information. Unable to apprehend the overwhelming complex­ity of nature, we employ abstrac­tions – attending to features of interest while ignoring others. Thus, natural science begins with a Fundamental Abstraction.

Knowledge is a subject-object relation, entailing a knowing subject and a known object. The initial moment of natural science is the abstraction of the object from the subject – our choice to attend to physical objects to the exclusion of inseparable subjectivity. Natural scien­tists care about what was experienced, not the act of experiencing. Thus, sci­ence is, by design and appropriately, is bereft of data and concepts on knowing subjects and their mental acts. Yet, these data and concepts are required to connect phys­ical fin­dings to awareness. Consequently, physics lacks intentional causes and effects – not because the physical and intentional are independent, but because we have abstracted their interdependence away in constructing physics.

I have a paper coming out shortly in the Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, "The Hard Problem of Consciousness and the Fundamental Abstraction". It discusses the very point made by the OP at length. If anyone would like a preprint, let me know.

NOS4A2,

Thanks for the mention. Yes, my degree is in theoretical physics, but I have published more in philosophy. A new paper was recently accepted: "The Hard Problem of Consciousness and
the Fundamental Abstraction," which will appear in the Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research.

There's no law preventing us from thinking the words square circle, but we can't form a concept corresponding to these words. — Dusty of Sky

We can't form an image of a square circle, but we can add the modifying concept <square> (not just the word "square") to the concept <circle>.

However, if a posteriori means contingent upon experience and a priori means knowable as true or false regardless of particular experiences, then I think you are incorrect. — Dusty of Sky

I mean a posteriori with respect to the experiences required to learn, and a priori in is subsequent application, So, I think we agree.

Even if I had no experiences to abstract from but the consciousness of my own existence, I should be able to deduce that I exist, therefore I don't not exist, and since not not existing is the same as existing, my only options are to exist or not exist. — Dusty of Sky

I think we only learn about ourselves as knowing subjects from reflecting on our acts of knowing. So, I don't think that what you envision is possible.

I think it is possible for a being capable of ideation and understanding to perform this deduction regardless of his particular experiences. — Dusty of Sky

I agree if you mean any specific kind of experience, but not if you mean with absolutely no experience of knowing, as then we would have no means of grasping that we can know, This is because we can only understand what is actual/operational, not what is merely potential.

My objection to a priori, is that see no reason to believe that we know anything prior to all experience.

In my view, which is based on Aristotle, Aquinas and John of St. Thomas, the rules of logic are not given a priori, but are abstracted from experience.

To understand this, we must distinguish what Henry Veatch calls "intentional logic" from modern logic, which is quite different. The kind of logic I am discussing is the art and science of correct thinking, not a set of rules for symbolic manipulation.

The rules of modern logic cannot be applied without thinking an Aristotelian syllogism:
Every case with these characteristics is a case in which this rule applies.
This case (the one I am thinking about) has these characteristics.
Therefore, this is a case in which this rule applies.
This is simply Aristotle syllogism in Barbara, and is what we must think to apply any scientific knowledge we have. Hence, despite the vigorous protestations of modern logicians, they have not done away with Aristotle's logic, but rely on it whenever they apply the rules of manipulation they have developed.

So, we need to consider how it is that we think when we think correctly. Robert Boole, the founder of Boolean logic, entitled his masterwork The Laws of Thought, but it you reflect, there is no law preventing us from thinking "square circle," or "triangles have four sides." It is only if we want our thought to apply to reality, to what is, that we should not think these kinds of thoughts.

So, let me suggest that we abstract from our experience an understanding of what it means to be -- an understanding of the nature of existence. And, implicit in this a posteriori understanding are laws of being that must be reflected in our thought, if our thought is to apply to what is. For example, we come to understand that nothing can both be and not be at one and the same time in one and the same way, and, from this we derive the logical rule that we cannot both assert and deny the same thing at the same time. So we come to grasp the logical principles of Identity, Contradiction and Excluded Middle from the corresponding ontological principles -- and we abstract those from our experience of being.

In counting different kinds of things (pennies, apples, Legos), abstraction allows us to see that counting, and so the relationship between numbers, does not depend on what we count. In the same way, we can see from our experience with different kinds of being, that some relations (the ontological principles above) do not depend on what kind of being we are dealing with, but are true of being per se.

Please do not be so harsh on Ken.

You appear to want both process and a stopping of process. — tim wood

Not quite. I want to know what is. I see processes, and processes coming to completion. Plants sprout, grow, disseminate seed and die. People are conceived, born, mature, do good and/or evil, and die. Processes and ends are equally real.

you want it to be the essential cause of something that it cannot be the essential cause of. — tim wood

I have no idea what this means or how it relates to what I said. What is the "it" I want? What is the "something that it cannot be the essential cause of"?

If you wish to say that the commitment to choose an action - these broadly defined - is the genesis of moral agency, — tim wood

I do not. I wish to say that humans are moral agents because our commitments are the radical origin of new lines of action that can do good or evil. By "radical origin," I mean that the new lines of action are not fully determined before we commit to them.

But as caused essentially, not so. Either you have process yielding a result not the process - an accidental cause, or you have instantaneous result from an incomplete process. — tim wood

Let me be clear, accidental and essential causality are distinct, but not mutually exclusive. Processes always involve the actualization of potency over time. The pile of building materials does not suddenly and discontinuously become a house. Rather a building process turns it, bit by bit, into a house. At every instant the house is being built, there is an essential cause in operation (the builder building). If the essential cause ceases to operate, the house ceases being built. When the house is again being built, its essential cause is again operative -- some builder is once again building.

What we learn from this is that accidental causality, the linking of an initial event (say the signing of a construction contract) to its subsequent outcome (the completion of the house), is simply the integral effect of essential causality over time. At each instant that the process is progressing, it is doing so because an agent is concurrently actualizing some potential.

Imagine I decide to go to the store. If at any subsequent time my intention changes, I will no longer be going to the store. I might still be driving in the same direction, but I will not longer be driving to the store, but to a point where I can implement my new intention.

All of which argues that what cause is, is what someone says it is — tim wood

Again, not quite. What the term "cause" refers to is what someone says it refers to when they use it. Still, what is (the actual process of building, deciding or whatever) is what it is independently of what anyone says it is.

Momentary essential cause as producing per process a finished product isn't consistent. — tim wood

It is not consistent if you abstract away the continuity of processes. While you may think of moments of essential causality as discrete and isolated points of action, in reality they are neither discrete nor isolated. Rather, each moment of action is dynamically linked to its predecessor and successor.

If we reflect, it is clear that no change can occur in a single point of time, and so no process can progress in an instant. Rather, if we are to capture the notion of change, and of progression of a process, we must think in terms of finite intervals, however infinitesimal. Still, there can be an instant of completion.

Or another way: building is the essential cause of building, that which links builder and built. But the linking is itself not constitutive of the building. — tim wood

No, the builder building (an agent in operation -- not an abstract operation) is the essential cause, not of an abstract operation (building), but of the building being built (a concrete reality).

But by itself, no building was ever built by building by- and in-itself — tim wood

We agree.

Your moral agency, then, is from accidental causes, but no less caused for that. — tim wood

As I pointed out above, accidental causality is derivative on essential causality, being its integral effect over time. At each point in the process that links the initial to the final event, there is an agent operating to actualize some potential -- taking the process to the next stage.

writing style reeks of fundamentalist Christianity, — Banno

Were I a fundamentalist, I would not accept evolution as sound science.

I think what you find unusual in my style is the open, rational consideration of evidence from anyone interested in truth. I read people I disagree with to understand why they think as they do -- and discuss philosophy with any person willing to engage in rational and civil discourse.

Good bye

By contrast, if I buy some dynamite to blast a stump out of the ground and having accomplished my goal then ask what caused the explosion, I will find that the Greek will not yield a modern answer. — tim wood

Aristotle would, I think, say that you were the efficient cause (having actualized the relevant potentials) and that the dynamite was an instrumental cause, as it was the instrument you used to effect your will to blow the stump up.

On the other hand, the modern account tends to freeze the moment to when the burning fuse touches the explosive material, at that moment starting the rapid reaction that just (statically) is the explosion. — tim wood

If we narrow our focus by abstracting the part from the whole, fixing on this to the neglect of that, the result is not to change the reality, but to limit our understanding of reality. This is a bad habit easily corrected by taking the time to see the abstract in context -- thus avoiding Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness (which consists in seeing our abstractions as the concrete reality).

And so I find the essential cause as the building of the house being built by the builder building the house not directly translatable — tim wood

?. Didn't you just say we have gerunds and participles with which to translate it? We understand that building is in the active mood of the present progressive tense and being built in its passive mood. more importantly we know that building and being built are always inseparable, being two sides of the same coin -- and that is Aristotle's point: that there is no happening without a doing, and so any actualization of a potential requires the act of an operational agent.

He, Aristotle, imo was making a simple grammatical point about the identity of passive and active description while retaining the dynamism, the process(es) and agency. — tim wood

He was never interested in abstract grammar, but did linguistic analysis to tease out the ontology it expresses. You can see this in the Categories, the point of which was to clarify the confusions Platonism traded upon. So, he was doing more than making a grammatical point. He was asking us to look at the grammar and see the reality that motivates it, viz. that there is no acting without something being acted upon, and no being acted upon without something acting.

The question, then, if essential causality is the cause of moral agency, is it in the Greek temporal sense of an agent-performed process that produces a result? Or in a modern and static sense, wherein responsibility is extracted and regarded in a frozen moment prior to which it isn't, and at which moment it is. It seems to me that you cannot extract from the Greek sense, without losing it completely and creating a different meaning. — tim wood

I believe you think too little of Greek comprehension. Yes, there is a process of building, but it is not interminable. There comes a moment when the process is complete, when it has reached its telos, and the house is finished.

In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle shares his vision of the process leading to a choice, which he calls proairesis. It is rational, starting with the end we desire, determining means adequate to that end, then what is required to effect those means, and so on iteratively until we come to what must be done now. Aquinas adds that we only know that we are committed to the end when we will the means -- in other words, when we begin to walk the walk.

Superior animals look purposefully for data, in an active manner, they don't collect them passively. They are looking. This indicates an awareness of the world out there and of their presence in it. — Olivier5

This does not argue intentionality. Looking for predators, food and water is adaptive behavior selected by evolution. It is not evidence of a rational decision-making process.

All data has a source and a cost (beyond the most basic and passive systems) and therefore it has a darwinian advantage, or it wouldn't be collected and analysed in the first place. — Olivier5

This is true of practical knowledge, but not of wanting to know for the sake of knowing, i.e. theoretical knowledge.

There's no data without some import or another, and therefore there's no data without some possibility of a referent. Data is always about something, or it won't get collected by a living organism at all. — Olivier5

We humans see that neural states as representational, but that does not mean that they need to be recognized as representational by the organism they belong to, to generate adaptive behavior.

What you are saying is that the mental system of a porpoise or donkeys may not include this mirror effect we call consciousness. — Olivier5

Awareness is what I am discussing, and awareness is not mirroring, but knowing. Awareness does not reflect anything back. We are aware when what was merely intelligible is actually known. Actualizing the knowability of neurally encoded data gives those contents something new, a relation to a knowing subject. This is a relation no amount of physical processing can achieve because the subject is not part of, or even latent in, the representation.

I'm making that up as I speak of course. Still chewing on it. — Olivier5

I appreciate your time and considered reflections.

Philosophical naturalists claim macroevolution shows order emerging by pure chance.

The very first sentence!!! — Kenosha Kid

1. That does not say what you claimed I said, i.e. that evolution is purely random.
When you take one sentence out of context, you can twist its meaning. That is why you need to read articles instead of twisting the first line of an abstract.

2. "Random" has many meanings, one of which is mindless. It should be evident to anyone who read the title ("Mind or Randomness in Evolution") that the meaning of "purely random" in the abstract is totally mindless. That evolution is mindless is the argument that naturalists use against William Paley's watchmaker argument.

Surely, you are not saying that Dawkins supports Mind in nature?

3. Had you read the article, as a fair-mined person would have before criticizing it, you would have read:
"Evolution rests on three points. (1) The existence of variant genotypes. These result from “random” mutations and transcription errors; (2) A selection mechanism favoring variations enhancing reproduction and survival; and (3) Inheritability – the capacity to pass on variations that lead to enhanced survival and reproduction."

This is not saying that evolution is purely random as you claim I did. Only the first point involves randomness. In fact, the article spends pages on the role of deterministic laws of nature in evolution.

4. I explicitly quote Dawkins discussing the non-random aspect of evolution:
"In nature, the usual selecting agent is direct, stark and simple. It is the grim reaper. Of course, the reasons for survival are anything but simple – that is why natural selection can build up animals and plants of such formidable complexity. But there is something very crude and simple about death itself. And nonrandom death is all it takes to select phenotypes, and hence the genes that they contain, in nature (Dawkins 1996a: 87)."

So, once again, you have shown your willingness to criticize what you have not taken the trouble to understand.

Yeah but somebody keyed it in, or connected to the computer a camera or another sensor, itself designed by some folk at pointed somewhere by another. Data means "given" and it's given by something or somebody. There's always a source to the data and it is always collected for a reason or another. — Olivier5

Yes, data is the given, but it is not a cognitive given for the computer, but for to us. As you note, someone, some human, has keyed it in or arranged some other input. It is to that person that the physical state of the computer has meaning and reference.

We can explain every operation of a computer without the slightest appeal to the meaning of the data it is operating upon. Thus, meaning is irrelevant to computers.

It may be that some other species has consciousness, perhaps porpoises. If so, it is not because they can process data, but because they are aware of some of the data they process.

As I have argued in an earlier thread, it is impossible to reduce intentional operations such as knowing and willing, to physical operations. And, because evolution is a theory about the physical world, it does not have the power, by itself, to explain the emergence of knowing and willing as opposed to processing sensory inputs to produce adaptive responses.

Rocks are not been chased by predators. It's easier for them. — Olivier5

Yes, but even amoebas respond to their environment.

I read the part of your paper that claimed that philosophical naturalists characterise evolution as a purely random process, which is a lie. — Kenosha Kid

Yes, you wrote a lie. You can quote nothing in my paper saying that. Please do not lie about my work again.

Data means something. It's provided by the senses, and it therefore refers to the world out there, or rather to our perception of it. — Olivier5

Data means something to humans, not in its physical representations. Data in a computer is simply a physical state, typically accumulations of electrons or sets of magnetic orientations. Data in neural systems is also a physical state, typically neuron firing rates and dendritic connections. No purely physical state has intrinsic reference. It is simply what it is, without being "about" anything else.

To protect something, one needs to be aware of that something — Olivier5

No, to intend to protect, one needs to be aware of it. Mere protection requires no awareness. Overlaying rocks protect underlying rocks without a hint of intent or awareness.

Dawkins who takes great pains to explain that evolution is not, nor could be, a random process, you charlatan. — Kenosha Kid

I have read Dawkins, and I stand by my claim. I said neither that evolution is entirely random, nor that Dawkins claimed that it was. If you read my paper, you would know that. As you refuse to open your mind and consider any evidence or arguments that might shake your prejudices, there is no point in spending more of my time responding to you.

A 'superior data processing and response' system must include self-reference. — Olivier5

Data processing contains no reference whatsoever. It is simply the physical manipulation of input signals to produce output signals. Evolution selects for systems that produce more adaptive outputs (actions give an advantage in the survival of offspring).

It is we, as thinking beings, who give input and output signals reference -- who see them as meaning something. There is no warrant for imbuing data processing systems, whether organic or artificial with such human attributes. To do so is anthropomorphizing them.

You can see that reference plays no role in signal processing, because whatever the signal means, it will be processed in the same way. Say a signal has a wave form. It will be processed in exactly the same way regardless of whether we see that form as referring to a water, light, sound or seismic wave.

This requires a mental 3D map, the modelisation of movements within that 3D map, and therefore I think some sense of self vs the rest of the world. — Olivier5

You are confusing having data or manipulable representations with knowing data or representations. A physical data processing system will produce the same outputs whether we assume that it is aware of the data it processes or not. So, the assumed awareness can have no physical effect. If it has no physical effect, there is no way for natural selection to prefer it.

Self preservation requires a sense of self. — Olivier5

No, it does not. It only requires adaptive physical behavior. We may identify them and project our human experience, our sense of self, into them, but there is no evidence requiring us to do so.

I have read and rebutted Dawkins's nonsense. If you think he has a sound argument, provide it.

You appear to argue that free choice is essentially caused. But I think there's a slip, here - and I wonder if you mean efficient cause — tim wood

I think I said in the OP that essential and accidental are two types of efficient causality.

Because what, exactly, is the essential cause? It is the builder's building of the house being built. It is not in any way the builder's choice/decision to build the house. — tim wood

The difference Aristotle is illustrating is that while accidental causality links successive events, essential causality occurs in a single event. It is an agent actualizing some potential here and now. Not every instance of essential causality is a willed choice, but every willed choice is an instance of essential causality. So, the building example illustrates the general concept of essential causality, not willing in particular.

The choice to build and the building two different things. — tim wood

Yes, but building willingly and willing to build ate inseparable

If you want to associate moral agency with free choice, then you have to decide or figure out when the moral agency kicks in (and what kicks it). — tim wood

It kicks in as soon as one commits to a line of action and continues as long as one continues to be committed. What commits is a unified person. We abstract out of that unity the capacity to commit and call it "the will," but the will is not a thing, it is only a person's capacity to make commitments. So, we should not reify the will.

you shall have to decide what moral agency means. — tim wood

It means that we can make rational commitments. It is not an artifact of legislation, but legislation can reflect the fact that persons can and do act as moral agents.

And then there is Mathew 5:28, wherein the thought alone would seem to establish moral agency, no choice having been made. — tim wood

Matt 5:28: "But I say unto you, that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart."

Note that the text envisions actually looking as a means to the end of lusting. It does not condemn looking, or feeling, but acting to an immoral end. We know that we are committed to an end when we are executing the means to that end. (Walking the walk, not merely talking the talk.) This is not thinking of the act only, but starting to act on the thought.

And moral agency/responsibility seems a capacity people have to assign certain meanings to actions, — tim wood

No, I can assign a meaning to an act without committing to the act. I can think <if I get closer, that would violate the Jane's personal space> and then commit to staying where I am.

And relativism avoided by appeal to and acceptance of reason, by most people. — tim wood

One can commit in the framework of a universalist ethics, or in that of a relativistic ethics, so relativism is irrelevant to the fact of moral agency.

I pointed out that the very first sentence of your paper is factually wrong — Kenosha Kid

I suggest you read the works of naturalists such as Huxley and Dawkins, who explicitly argue that we do not need mind in nature as evolution exemplifies order emerging from randomness.

So we need free will in order to feel comfortable in administering punishment. — Banno

Not at all. Despite free will, we should feel very uncomfortable in administering punishment.
1. The act we might punish might not be a free act. For example, we can't get into other people's minds to know whether they acted freely or as the result of some pathology.
2. Why do we have the moral right to administer punishment?
3. Is committing an evil act a moral warrant for punishment?
4. Even if we are justified in administering it, what is proportional punishment?
I could go on.

Hence, we do not need to appeal to free will. — Banno

Agreed. Whether free will is possible, and whether it is real, have nothing to do with punishment. We might justify negative reinforcement without assuming free will, and we might accept free will without thinking that it justifies the administration of punishment.

Would some kind soul offer a two or three sentence precis of just what this thread is about? The title of the thread is, "Compatibilism Misunderstands both Free Will and Causality." In as much as most of the words in the title are terms-of-art, and no definitions have been offered (please direct me if I've overlooked them), it is not clear to me the discussion can arise to the level of coherence. — tim wood

Definitions:
Free will:

To be responsible for an act, one must be the origin of that act. If the act is predetermined before we were born, as determinism claims, clearly it does not originate in us or anything we did. So, compatibilism is fraud. — Dfpolis

While this is not a definition, it implies the kind of free will I am defending, i.e. one that sees acts as having their causal origin in the moral agent. So, "free will" means that at least some of our moral choices are not predetermined, but originate in an informed act of the moral agent.

The Compatibilist Notion of Free Will

... the idea that "free will" means we can do or choose what we desire (or something similar), — Dfpolis

Causality:

for over 1800 years, philosophers distinguished two kinds of efficient causality: accidental (Humean-Kantian time sequence by rule) and essential (the actualization of potency). — Dfpolis

I then go on to discuss each type at length providing examples.

The notion of cause as in cause-and-effect is a presupposition of differing ways of thinking and means different things in the several ways. Thus if one argues with it, one needs the right one, and in the right sense and application. Lacking that the argument cannot be correct. And even when correctly argued, only correct in its home context. — tim wood

That is why the OP is not short.

As to the possibility of free will, bumblebees fly and people have the capability for free will. And no account of either is of much real use unless grounded somehow somewhere someway. — tim wood

There is no evidence that bees have the kind of free will that makes them responsible.

I did not offer evidence that humans do, because whether we actually have free will in the sense I am using is irrelevant to the point under discussion.

My thesis:

Compatibilism is an example of the old "bait and switch" sales tactic applied to moral philosophy. The bait is that you can have your moral cake (responsibility stemming from free-will) and Humean-Kantian causality (time sequence by rule) too. The switch is that the kind of "free will" that is compatible with time sequence by rule does not support human responsibility. — Dfpolis

Still, it is clear that we have the kind of free will that makes us responsible, that makes us the origin of lines of action not fully predetermined. To have free will in the required sense is to be capable of actualizing one of a number of incompatible choices equally in our power. Clearly, it is equally in my power to go to the store or to stay home, and my choice actualizes one of these possibilities.

I prefer 'free choice'. — Olivier5

That is my preferred term.

And at the end of this evolution, there's some 'pilot in the plane' that gets generated, some navigating system for the animal, that allows full integration of sense data, memory, analysis, etc, within the same space to make for better piloting. — Olivier5

While I agree with the evolutionary advantages of cephalization for ambulatory organisms, there is no reason to think that the evolutionary advantages lead to anything but superior data processing and response to the environment -- no reason to think that it leads to subjective awareness, and no reason to think it leads to free will/choice.

Thankfully, as far as my commenting at all herein is concerned, Hume now stands alone. — Mww

I am not sure what you mean, but fine.

I believe in evolution though. That's in fact precisely why I believe in what they call 'free will'. — Olivier5

I accept the modern evolutionary synthesis as sound science. What have I said that would make you think otherwise?

I would like to read the reasoning that leads you from evolution to free will. The fact that you put "free will" in scare quotes makes me wonder what you mean by it.

As you are unwilling to engage in rational discourse or even point out anything I wrote that is factually wrong, there is no point in responding to you further. Maybe you could try other TU alumni.

Did you not read my refutation of the whole thing recently published in the Journal of Middle-Earth Studies? — Isaac

It is amazing how the conversation ceases to be rational when I challenge cherished beliefs. If you think I am in error, make a case -- otherwise you come off as a bigot.

Yeah, the analysis in that 1991 paper is an absolute gem. — Isaac

I am open to the possibility that I may have been misled in my research, but not by one-liners. If you have a concrete criticism, spell it out.

it's a religious propaganda thing. Obviously you're going to regurgitate creationist misrepresentations of evolution!!! :facepalm: — Kenosha Kid

Did you attend Trump University, or are your prejudices home-grown?

Damn! You couldn't make it one sentence in without regurgitating the patented creationist misrepresentation of evolution? — Kenosha Kid

Obviously you are continuing to criticize what you have not read. The paper affirms all the science in the contemporary evolutionary synthesis. If you want to criticize me, at least find out what I am saying first. As it is you come off as a Jr. Trump.

“....The will is a kind of causality belonging to living beings in so far as they are rational, and freedom would be this property of such causality that it can be efficient, independently of foreign causes determining it; just as physical necessity is the property that the causality of all irrational beings has of being determined to activity by the influence of foreign causes....” — Mww

I see none of the defining characteristics of Aristotle's essential causality in this quotation. Do you? Kant is only claiming the will causes differently than Humean causality, without explaining how or why. Agreement demands belief, not reasoned assent.

“...Every rational being reckons himself qua intelligence as belonging to the world of understanding, and it is simply as an efficient cause belonging to that world that he calls his causality a will....” — Mww

The same is true here. Recall the nature of the differences. (1) Accidental causality, Humean-Kantian time sequence by rule, always involves two events, not one as in essental causality. (2) Accidental causality starts a process that may be interrupted by intervening events. Essential causality does not. (3) Essential causality acts concurrently with the actualization of its effect. Accidental causality does not.

Neither quotation notes either of these differences. As presented in these two texts, Kant's argument is merely special pleading: The way we cause in willing is not subject to the determinism of Humean causality.

You know...”on the one hand” as opposed to “on the other hand”? — Mww

On the other hand is on the other hand, but it is used to argue that there is an "antimony" involving univocally predicated "causality," and not that there is an equivocal use of "causality." If you think otherwise, quote Kant defining essential causality under any name, or saying that it, and not Hume's two-event causality, is involved in moral agency.

We seem to be agreeing.

Another apriorist giving this dead horse yet another beating. — SophistiCat

Please do not be so hard on naturalists, they have to deal with so much evidence that conflicts with their faith. We need to be understanding.

So how do we go about actualising a potential? Talk me through the neurological process. — Isaac

You are assuming, quite irrationally, that Chalmers' Hard Problem is not a chimera, but has a solution. In other words, you have faith that intentional acts are reducible to physical acts. I have previously shown that, for a number of sound reasons, they are not. (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4732/intentional-vs-material-reality-and-the-hard-problem). If you find my reasoning there flawed, feel free to explain why you believe so.

You are, however, quite right that for intentional acts to have physical effects they must modify the operation of neurons. How is this possible? In my paper "Mind or Randomness in Evolution" (Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (2010) XXII, 1/2, pp. 32-66 -- https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution). I show that the laws of nature (as opposed to our approximate descriptions of them, the laws of physics) are intentional, not material. realities. (The analysis begins on p. 2 of the pdf with the subheading "Logical Propagators.") Again, if you have objections, to my analysis, please post them.

For elements to interact they must act in the same theater of operation. A three kg mass cannot win a logical argument. That is why the argumentum ad baculum is a fallacy. Similarly, a logical proposition cannot, by itself, move a three kg mass. So, for choices to be effective, they have to act in the intentional theater of operations and not by exerting physical forces. However, since the laws of nature are intentional, there is no reason why our committed intentions, our choices, may not modify them.

It is our everyday experience that our commitments have physical effects. We decide to go to the store, and perform the motions required to get us to the store. More irrefutably, we discuss our choices. We could not do this physical act if our choices could have no physical effect -- which is why epiphenomenalism is patently false.

Still, many naturalists are not content with everyday experience, but say they demand controlled experiments. There are so-many experiments showing that intentions can control physical processes that meta-analyses of them calculate Z's of 18.2 (Radin and Ferrari, 1991 -- odds of 1.94 x 10^73 to 1) and 16.1 (Radin and Nelson, 2003 -- odds of 3.92 x 10^57 to 1). A single 12 year experiment (Jahn et al., 2007) produced a Z > 7.

Sill, even though many of these studies conformed to criteria laid down my skeptics in advance, naturalists, like climate change deniers, are unwilling to accept the science. How could they when it contradicts their sacred faith?

So, we have a confluence of theoretical analysis, everyday experience, and controlled experiments that show that human choices have physical effects.

Still, I'm unable to say precisely how intentionally modified laws of nature change the intersynaptic discharge of neurotransmitters. Of course, neuroscientists can't say how each of the 50 or so neurotransmitters does either. So, I can't consider this a serious objection.

Wavefunctions evolve deterministically, but which classical state of that superposition we become entangled with is random from our perspectives. You only save determinism in quantum theory if you look at the superposition of all timelines of the universe: within any given timeline, inherently unpredictable things happen every time anything interacts with anything else. — Pfhorrest

There are no classical states in quantum superposition, only the sum of eigenfunctions correlative to eigenvalues, and the set of eigenfunctions superimposed is not a physical property, but the result of our choice of a complete mathematical basis.

The equations of quantum theory are fully deterministic. It is only measurements, which involve the system to be measured interacting with a measuring system whose initial state is unknowable, that are probabilistic.

Unpredictable is not indeterminate. Determinism is a consequence of the laws of nature. Predictions require a knowledge not only of the laws of nature, but of the boundary conditions to be applied, aka, the initial state. And, any attempt to determine the initial conditions requires an interaction with a measuring device whose initial state is, again, unknown.

Superpositions, whether coherent or not, do not cause indeterminacy. This is because superpositions are the sum of deterministic wave functions, and so fully deterministic.

Finally, interaction terms in quantum theory are nonlinear and so incompatible with superposition.

f free will is just not being determined, then every electron has free will. Are electrons morally responsible? — Pfhorrest

This is a common confusion with regard to quantum theory. Quantum theory sees all unobserved processes as fully deterministic. It's only when we stick our finger into a quantum system and perturb it in some unknown way that probability is invoked.

Still, I agree that freedom is not indeterminism. It is rather that the acts we, as moral agents determine, are not determined prior to our choices. That is what it is to be a moral agent.

It's something about the particular way that our choices are determined that makes us morally responsible for them or not. — Pfhorrest

I agree. As I said, to be responsible, we need to be the ones determining our choices.

We must be very careful to note that the kind of "causality" which compatibilists are discussing is not the kind that makes moral agents responsible.

The Kantian sense of causality, which is actually rules sequenced in time, is the empirical sense of it, and does not apply to his moral philosophy — Mww

I was speaking of how Hume and Kant contributed to the contemporary use of "cause," not of Kant's moral philosophy.

Also, it is not rules that are sequenced, but events that are sequenced by rules. There is a rule sequencing the kind of seed planted and the kind of plant sprouting.

on the one hand he thinks of himself as an intelligence endowed with a will, and consequently with causality, and when on the other he perceives himself as a phenomenon in the world of sense (as he really is also), and affirms that his causality is subject to external determination according to laws of nature....” — Mww

There is not a hint here that he is using "causality" equivocally -- which he is. Rather he leaves the reader with the impression that our moral causality is univocally a causality "subject to external determination." Kant used this confusion to support his thesis that reason is faced with irreconcilable antimonies. It is not. The whole basis of his Critique is a tissue of confusion.

So, within the last 1800 years, there is a third causality, which is called freedom. — Mww

There is no reason to think that freedom involves anything other than the actualization of our human potential, and so a species of essential causality.

No, I am not a compatibilist in the standard sense.

I would rather say that there are three concepts here:
1. Representation of sense data -- ie: the interpreted form of the apple, as a neural state.
2. Interpretation of that representation -- ie: our modified overall mental state, or the "content" of conscious awareness.
3. The hard problem of consciousness -- ie: why the neural state "content" is accompanied by the "existence" of conscious awareness. — Malcolm Lett

I would not call these "concepts." Rather, interpretations always involve judgements, i.e. thinking this is that. A concept is more fundamental, it is simply the awareness of some aspect of reality. In my comment, the (1) the awareness of an objective aspect of the world, i.e. an apple and (2) an awareness of a subjective aspect of reality, i.e. my state. Neither of these awarenesses is a judgement or an interpretation, because their expression is not propositional. We are not saying "the apple is x" or "my state is y." We are just aware of some information.

Your (3) is not a concept, but a question, which is a desire that requires judgements to satisfy it.

To return to my point, physicalism fails because one neural state founds two concepts <an apple> and <the modification to me caused by the apple>. To have two distinct concepts, we need a differentiating factor, and one physical state can not provide it.

There is plenty of evidence for our brain processing and even acting on sense inputs without the need for us to be consciously aware of it at the time. — Malcolm Lett

Agreed. Thus, consciousness is not simply a concomitant of neural data processing. We need an additional causal factor. Physicalists believe that this is some special form of processing, but have neither a rational basis for thinking this nor a coherent hypothesis of what kind of processing this might be.

In fact, in Consciousness Explained Dennett provides cogent arguments that no naturalist theory can produce the experience of consciousness. His response is to discard the data of experience. Mine is to see the naturalistic hypothesis as falsified.

I posted a suite of arguments on this Forum showing that intentionality cannot be reduced to physicality. (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4732/intentional-vs-material-reality-and-the-hard-problem). None of the many responding comments found a fatal flaw in my case -- the conclusion of which is that Chalmers's "Hard Problem," is not a problem, but a chimera.

Those low level representations are slowly merged and built on as multiple layers of hierarchies are built upwards, until finally they form together into a single coherent and very high-level representation. — Malcolm Lett

This was Aristotle's conclusion in De Anima, where he named the integrated sensory representation a "phantasm." Still, he was smart enough to realize that a representation is not a concept. Representations are intelligible, (they contain information that can be known), but they are incapable of making themselves known. (How could they possibly do so?)

Instead, he argues in iii, 7, that we need an aspect of mind already operational in the intentional sphere to make what is potentially known, actually know. He called this aspect the "agent intellect," but phenomenologically, it is what we now call awareness -- for it is by turning our awareness to contents that they become actually known.

I've found apokrisis's mention of semiotics particularly helpful. — Malcolm Lett

Semiotic reflection confirms Aristotle's case. I will discuss an important semiotic distinction later, but for now consider what are called "instrumental signs" such as smoke, written and spoken language, and symbols. Some of these, such as smoke, signify naturally, and others signify conventionally, but what ever the origin of their meaningfulness, they cannot actually signify until we first recognize what they are in themselves and then form the concept they properly evoke.

For example, until we recognize that the smudge on the horizon is smoke, and not dust or a cloud, it cannot signify fire. In the same way, we cannot grasp the meaning of a written term until we can discern the form of its letters. In all cases, a thinking mind, one capable of semiotic interpretation, is absolutely essential to actualizing the meaning latent in the sign. So, invoking semiotics does not dispense with the need of an Aristotelian agent intellect to make what is only intelligible actually known.

But, as John of St. Thomas points out in his Ars Logica, the instruments of thought (concepts, judgements, and chains of reasoning) are not instrumental signs, but a wholly different kind of sign, formal signs. We can see this difference by reflecting on how ideas signify. Unlike natural signs, language and other symbols, when we think <apple> we do not first have to realize that we are dealing with an idea, and only then understand that the <apple> concept refers to actual apples. Rather, the concept <apple> signifies apples immediately and transparently, without us first recognizing that it is an idea which signifies. Instead, we first think <apple> and then realize that we must have employed some instrument of thought and name the instrument "the concept apple."

What has this to do with our problem? Simple this, while we might conceivably observe neural states and work out what they represent, if we did so, the neural states would not act as formal signs, would not act as concepts. Rather, they would be instrumental signs -- things whose nature must be understood in itself before we can extract any meaning they represent.

The whole being of formal signs -- all that they ever do -- is to signify. On the other hand, neurons do many things: growing and trimming dendritic connections, transporting ions and firing at various rates, and consuming nutrients. Among all these functions they may also signify information. But, in signifying they act as instrument, not formal signs.

Further, when we form concepts in the normal way, neurons do not act as any kind of sign. I can think <apple> without the slightest idea that my thought is supported by neural processing -- which it is. So, the final point is that when we say that neural states "represent" information, we must be careful not to confuse the way they normally represent information with the way any kind of sign represents information. Neurons do not represent as instrumental signs do, because we do not need to know them before we grasp their contents. Nor do they represent as formal signs do, because their whole being, all that they ever do, is not to signify, as they have physiological activities as well as representational activities.