As far as Eccles's contribution to the debate, the passage that Churchland quotes is the extent of that particular argument - not very illuminating, to be sure. Dr. Eccles, a Nobel-winning brain scientist and an old-fashioned Cartesian dualist, devotes the rest of the article to a detailed discussion of the neurophysiology of the brain and his thoughts about mind-brain interaction.

The argument that Popper makes in The Self and Its Brain (1973)* is that by committing to determinism you forfeit any claim to rationality; in particular, you cannot support your belief in determinism by a rational argument. Thus, determinism is self-undermining (not self-refuting). This argument does not provide you a reason to think that determinism is false. It only purports to show that you cannot possibly have a rational reason for believing determinism.

* The book was written in collaboration with Eccles, but they wrote two of the three parts independently, and Churchland's references in that book are to Popper's part.

Note that by determinism Popper means both causal determinism (the idea that "physical theory, together with the initial conditions prevalent at some given moment, completely determine the state of the physical universe at any other moment"), and more generally, "mechanical determinism," materialism, or physicalism - all of these terms are used interchangeably. His main challenge is to the idea of the causal closure of the physical world, or "World 1":

First, there is the physical world - the universe of physical entities...; this I will call "World 1". Second, there is the world of mental states, including states of consciousness and psychological dispositions and unconscious states; this I will call "World 2". But there is also a third such world, the world of the contents of thought, and, indeed, of the products of the human mind [such as stories, explanatory myths, tools, scientific theories (whether true or false), scientific problems, social institutions, and works of art]; this I will call "World 3"...

One of my main theses is that World 3 objects can be real...: not only in their World 1 materializations or embodiments, but also in their World 3 aspects. As World 3 objects, they may induce men to produce other World 3 objects and, thereby, to act on World 1; and interaction with World 1 - even indirect interaction - I regard as a decisive argument for calling a thing real. — The Self and Its Brain

Popper argues that all of these "worlds" exist and causally interact with each other. (And even within each world there are still more worlds, or layers, that likewise exhibit both upwards and downwards causation.) World 2 emerged from World 1 in the course of biological evolution, and World 3 emerged from the other two. But this order of emergence does not reflect the hierarchy of causal relationships between the worlds, because once they emerge, they begin to strongly interact with each other in every direction.

As for the argument that Churchland criticizes, it proceeds from Popper's rejection of epiphenomenalism: the idea that the mental is causally inert and does not interact with the physical world - which to him means the same thing as to say that the mental is not real. And this leads him to conclude that "if epiphenomenalism is true, we cannot take seriously as a reason or argument whatever is said in its support.".

The proof of this thesis is offered in the form of a lengthy dialogue between a Physicalist and an Interactionist, but my impression is that the idea of self-defeat, declared beforehand, does not come through clearly in that dialogue. Popper once again endeavors to defend the reality and indispensability of his World 3 - the world of ideas - and once he is satisfied that he has thrashed his imaginary opponent on that point, he declares victory.

I suppose a sketch of the argument would look something like this:

1. If the physical world is causally closed (this thesis Popper variously labels as materialism, physicalism or determinism), then it follows that the world of ideas is causally inert. (Some alternatives, such as the identity thesis, are rejected in separate arguments.)

2. Take any proposition, such as 1 + 1 = 2, or indeed the proposition that affirms the truth of physicalism. To what does it owe its truth? Both the proposition and any arguments in support of its truth are abstract ideas. But the physicalist only has the physical world at her disposal to make the argument. Nor can the abstract be reduced to the physical. Thus it follows that the physicalist cannot rationally support her own position.

More later.

Simple question? Why would you think you could replace a word, here, without loss of meaning? — Anthony

Because I mistook what you wrote for an argument. I have since realized my mistake. Carry on.

When consciousness itself isn't entirely understood, in what way wouldn't it be prevaricating trying to assert a machine can be conscious? — Anthony

Substitute anything else for "consciousness" in the above sentence and you'll realize how absurd it is.

When motion itself isn't entirely understood, in what way wouldn't it be prevaricating trying to assert that something can be moving?

When kindness itself isn't entirely understood, in what way wouldn't it be prevaricating trying to assert that someone can be kind?

If machines truly were sentient — Anthony

I am not sure why you wrote that string of remarks in response to my post. I didn't opine on whether machines were "truly sentient." All I said was that words have meanings that we give them. There is no law that says that the word "intelligent" can only imply "true sentience," forever and ever. This word has been used in other senses for a long time. Moreover, I don't know if there even was a time when the word exclusively referred to the totality of sentience, as you insist, rather than some aspect of it.

Some words are just names for things well-known. Other words, terms-of-art, are invented words, or invented meanings for existing words, and the words themselves or meanings thereof really cannot be understood without already understanding the thing the word refers to. To refer to a machine as intelligent is the use of the word "intelligent" in just that latter sense. — tim wood

I think the word "intelligent" is widely used in a more general sense of exhibiting complex, responsive, behavior, well suited to a purpose so that it should not even be considered to be a term of art.

We are the masters of our language, not the the other way around; we create meanings. If we apply the word 'intelligent' to something other than a human being, then that is what the word means. And supposing that the origin of this meaning is anthropomorphic, as you seem to assume, so what?

OED gives this as one of the secondary meanings for 'intelligent':

(of a device or building) able to vary its state or action in response to varying situations and past experience.

What exactly do you mean by "determinism" here? Are you using a strict physicalist definition, or some loose metaphorical one, as in "business as usual"? I am asking because what you say about people acting "out of character", "enlightenment," etc. doesn't seem to have much to do with physical determinism.

I am trying to prove that we can act freely even if we choose not to most of our lives. — Jamesk

Your proof, as far as I can see, consists in redefining what it means to "act freely." To paraphrase Russell, this method of redefining words has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.

The core of what you are saying consists in the observation that most of the time people "sleepwalk" through life, but sometimes they do something "out of character." (Like that mother of four who one day, for no obvious reason, killed all of her children... Oops! Bad example.) Which is true enough, but also a banality.

I don't communicate via Facebook, but I wasn't writing about myself. That Facebook plays an outsize role on the Internet for just some "social media site" cannot be denied if you haven't been living in a cave for the last decade.

Just want to add that Facebook is not just one website among many, one product offering among many. In some parts Facebook is pretty much synonymous with Internet, which makes it more like a utility, for better or for worse. So what Facebook does (or does not do) is not just a private business decision - it has a global social impact.

Now that you guys have figured out how to make a subsection less visible, I would suggest adding another one besides The Lounge. Right now The Lounge doubles as a place for relaxed and off-topic discussion, as well as a dump for threads that don't fit moderators' standards in other forums, which makes for a weird mix. I would rather see a dedicated "dump" subsection (you could give it a more polite name, like "Not quite philosophy" or something).

I could live for a million years and I wouldn't be too old for college girls. — Terrapin Station

Only if those girls study paleontology in college. Then you would be quite a find!

If there is a problem, it is an overall quality of discussion across topics. There are some specialized topics that have a certain knowledge barrier for entry, e.g. discussions focused on specific philosophical works; those discussions tend to be of a higher quality. And then there are topics that are both widely engaging and without any apparent prerequisites for participation - and that is where the overall quality is lower, for understandable reasons. Religion is just one example. Free will would be another.

Is it a empirical fact or quite possibly an illusion? That’s my whole argument. — Yajur

It is an empirical fact.

You are going at it backwards. The first thing you need to do is to ask: What is free will? And think very carefully about how you are going to answer that question. Instead, you kind of assume that you know what it means, based on how the words sound to you. And as a result, you end up talking about some simplistic artificial concept that doesn't apply to anything in the world.

So you proved that "free will" in your sense does not exist. But so what? It's an absolutely useless result, since your sense does not concern anyone but yourself.

So, you are not free with respect to your carb consumption. — Yajur

You are not "free" in one narrow sense, but that sense has little relevance to what we usually think of as exercising free will. Case in point - your own example. Everyone would agree that if you have the luxury to choose what you eat, and no one intervenes to limit your choice, then your choice is free. Now, this is an empirical fact. The task of the philosopher is to make her account of free will consistent with that fact.

If you say that the alternative possibility must be under the libertarians control, then what exactly is the libertarian controlling that is not determinative? — Relativist

You gave one possible answer in your preceding paragraph:

If I make a choice based on my prior beliefs and dispositions, isn't that choice under my control? That seems to be the case irrespective of whether our free will is libertarian or compatibilist. — Relativist

That is indeed the line pursued by some libertarians. You control your choices in virtue of them being your choices. Control, according to this view, is not causal control.

OK, but any factor under the agent's control seems determinative, which falsifies LFW. — Relativist

It is widely recognized that there are two main aspects to free will: alternative possibilities and agent control. Most of those who affirm free will are obliged to account for both of these aspects, and libertarian free will advocates are no exception.

Your proposal to go to war over fake news suggests the knee-jerk reaction of a right-wing authoritarian. The priority is not so much to deal with the situation as to punish the transgressor, no matter the cost and the consequences.

As to actually addressing the problem, you have to accept the reality that many problems cannot be successfully resolved - as in Mission Accomplished! - only mitigated or contained at best. In the end you have to choose between the least of evils, and the choices are often far from obvious. Sometimes the least worst option is to do nothing. I am not saying that this is the case here. I don't know what the best approach to deal with information warfare (as Russians themselves like to refer to it) would be.

Education (counter-propaganda) and exposure may help to mitigate and contain, but not every such effort is going to be successful, and some may even be counterproductive. Simply debunking lies can actually have a blowback effect, as some studies suggest.

Political pressure? Sanctions? I have a feeling that these are the kinds of direct responses that are easy to sell to your domestic audience, because they show that you are doing something and being firm. But do they actually work? I am not so sure.

War? Are you fucking nuts?

Be ware that MU's "definitions" are his own. If for some reason you want to know what MU thinks about mathematics (or anything else for that matter), then by all means read what MU has to say about it. If you want to know something about the subject as such, look elsewhere.

You proposal would benefit from some examples, followed by an argument to the effect that such instances are the norm. Right now I don't see that at all. There are, I am sure, instances where a successful innovation was the result of a fortuitous infidelity in the process of replication, but I don't believe that is very common, let alone the norm.

I personally wouldn't use Nietzsche, Freud, and Jung as authorities on consciousness; I put more trust into more modern psychology and cognitive science, and philosophy of mind even.

Anyway, I think you are conflating consciousness with awareness. We are aware of only a few things at a time, but our conscious activity covers a lot more ground. So it is awareness that is a "surface phenomenon," but awareness is only a small part of consciousness.

Russophobia — Wallows

That's a Russian propaganda term, which in practice means any word or action by an outside actor or an opposition figure that rubs the Russian leadership the wrong way. Russophobic is an update of the Soviet-era go-to term Anti-Soviet, which was used just as freely by Soviet leadership and propaganda.

People can only be fooled so many times. — Wallows

You couldn't be more wrong. Everything we've learned indicates that people can be fooled as long as they are willing to be fooled, which is most of the time.

Lies between nations is more difficult. Perhaps some war.... — tim wood

Oh sure. There's no problem that a little hot war won't fix. It's been working out great up to now, so why not do it more often?

We all like to moan about how awful our leaders are, but when you read something like this, you realize that it could've been a lot worse...

I've read one physicist claiming that this means that existence, time, space, everything must be finite, because infinite sets are logically contradictory, as you can apparently change their ratios by changing the order in which you look at them. — Fuzzball Baggins

I wonder who would say such a thing. Where did you read this?

What do you guys think? Anything wrong with my reasoning? Anything I've missed? — Fuzzball Baggins

Yeah, you missed, or rather forgot, your own argument showing that some measures just aren't well-defined. This doesn't imply anything logically contradictory, of course, only that not every measure that you care to describe is well-defined.

The measure problem in cosmology is not that you can't come up with some well-defined measure - there is no lack of candidates. The problem is in coming up with a physical justification for a specific measure - and that's a scientific problem.

Yeah, his communication skills leave much to be desired, in more ways than one. I am not going to bother with him any further.

Wasn't Strawson saying that we are not ultimately responsible for our actions? This seems to be a radical claim, and it has huge implications for human concerns. At least I think so. — Noah Te Stroete

Yes, he is saying that we are not ultimately responsible. But Strawson's ultimate responsibility is not the same as what we usually think of as moral responsibility. To paraphrase Dennett, it is not the moral responsibility worth having. It is irrelevant to our concerns.

This is also what Strawson Jr. is arguing. But my question is - so what? ... [H]ow is this "absolutely free will" ... relevant to any human concerns? — SophistiCat

You could say this with almost any "problem" of philosophy. That's why the average person couldn't care less about philosophy. — Noah Te Stroete

I disagree. Good philosophical analysis should be relevant to its subject. This is why I think Galen Strawson's analysis fails: ostensibly, it is about something that is very relevant to us: moral responsibility, free will. But in actuality, the artificial construct around which Strawson builds his argument has rather little to do with those subjects. This, by the way, characterizes many discussions related to free will.

But it doesn't have to be so. And indeed, if you look around for philosophical literature on these subjects, you will find better examples. (Earlier in the thread I cited what I consider to be a better example from Peter Strawson, Galen's father.)

Our cranky and inarticulate friend has a point in that there is a difference between a conceptual definition of a number, which describes the properties that anything fitting the definition of a 'number' ought to have, and its particular theoretical construction, such as von Neumann's (which was designed to meet the requirements of the conceptual definition).

But my comment about numbers being sets (everything is a set in the set theory construction of mathematics - obviously) was made in the context of the preceding discussion, which Ikolos does not or will not follow.

This is false. There are sets of numbers, but number themselves are not at all sets — Ikolos

Of course they are.

I don't think cardinality offer a quantitative view of Infinity, since it is either a relation between a set and its elements or between its elements and numbers(e.g. a set is D-
infinite iff for every natural number the set has a subset whose cardinality is that natural number) or between sets(e.g. the cardinal of R is bigger than the cardinal of I) — Ikolos

Numbers are sets, in the usual axiomatizations, so cardinality very naturally fits our idea of quantity.

It seems to me that a person can be said to have an absolutely free will only if that person is in some mysterious sense self-created; that is, only if that person, in some way, was able to choose who they are (their character).
For, ultimately, it is the person's character which determines the motives to which he/she responds, or does not respond, and it is their character for which he/she feels responsible.
This I learned from Arthur Schopenhauer! — charles ferraro

This is also what Strawson Jr. is arguing. But my question is - so what? If that's how you define "absolutely free will," then, obviously, that's how it is. But how is this "absolutely free will" - a made-up thing that cannot possibly exist - relevant to any human concerns?

What do you think? Is this evolutionary approach reasonable to the studies of social sciences? — F.C.F.V.

I am afraid it wasn't very clear what question you were raising, and so unfortunately the discussion has been derailed into the perennial argument about universal morality.

Anyway, as best as I can tell, you are proposing that Hume's dictum can be vindicated if a naturalistic account of the origins of morality is true. Is this more-or-less what you are saying?

First, note that Hume, not having the benefit (?) of later developments in evolutionary psychology and social science, brought his own arguments to bear. What do you think of those?

Second, let's look at the title dictum: "The Rules Of Morality Are Not The Conclusions Of Our Reason." I think it is evident that it is not exactly true. When we don't have an instant moral clarity on some question, we often apply reason. However, it may be argued that when we trace our moral reasoning to its termini, we will always find some other moral rules there, which are themselves not based on reason.

One way to argue in favor of that position is to say that in point of fact, foundational moral principles are not chosen by each person through rational deliberation. To that end, one might try to show that moral values invariably come about non-rationally: either they emerge from our natural inclinations (moral instincts), or they are inculcated through upbringing, religious indoctrination, authority, social pressure, etc.

How does a particular historical account of the emergence of morality bear on this? That is not very clear. It seems to me that you would first need to establish the proximate causes of our moral judgements along the lines that I suggested above. Once that is done, you could further develop an account of those causes: evolution of moral instincts, social dynamics resulting in the emergence of social norms, etc., but all that seems to be surplus to requirements. You could counterfactually suppose that our moral principles are instilled in us by God, for example - and that would serve the argument just as well, because that too would be an instance of a non-rational origination of morality.

Another way to argue for the thesis is to follow Hume in saying that as a matter of principle, it could not be otherwise. Reason, says Hume, does not motivate action (reason can tell you how best to achieve your goal, but it does not supply goals). "Reason is the slave of the passions." You cannot get from an is - facts, observations - to an ought - moral judgements - though reason. Therefore, only normative beliefs and inclinations can be the source of our moral judgements.

My claim is that mental phenomena supervene on the physical brain. Some difference in the brain is necessary for a change in the mental processes. Also the brain supervenes on mental processes. Any change in mental processes necessitate changes in the brain. Hence, my assertion that there is supervenience BETWEEN mental processes and the brain. — Noah Te Stroete

Some difference in the brain is necessary for a change in the mental processes and Any change in mental processes necessitate changes in the brain mean exactly the same thing: that mental processes supervene on brain processes. Not the other way around.

Anyway, I just wanted to draw your attention to your basic misunderstanding of supervenience in general.

There are A differences if and only if there are B differences. It goes both ways. Just Google “supervenience”. “If and only if” doesn’t just mean “if”. — Noah Te Stroete

You are misreading the definition that, I assume, you got from Google:

X is said to supervene on Y if and only if some difference in Y is necessary for any difference in X to be possible. — Supervenience - Wikipedia

Note the placement of IFF in the wiki definition.

Supervenience does not do away with cause and effect. The lower level physical realization is subject to cause and effect as is the higher level mental exercise. It's just that the two levels line up 1:1. — Noah Te Stroete

Supervenience is a one-to-many relationship ("No A changes without B changes," but not the other way around).

Sounds like an outright attack on morality to me. — Jamesk

Well, the title of the paper is kind of a giveaway... But not really. Strawson talks about "ultimate" moral responsibility (he uses half a dozen more such adjectives throughout the discussion). What this has to do with plain-vanilla moral responsibility that we actually live with is questionable. In my opinion, not nearly as much as Strawson implies. And yet the issue of sourcehood is not entirely irrelevant either. But Strawson with his blunt approach does not do a good job of tackling this question.

Crack open any textbook on calculus. The concept of the limit is one of the first things that is covered in a typical calculus course, right after the basics of set theory. You need to understand mathematics before you can discuss philosophy of mathematics.

No idea. — Devans99

Yes, that's exactly the problem.

I know the textbook definition, the question the OP poses is: 'is the textbook definition correct?'. — Devans99

The question in the OP indicates that you don't know or don't understand the textbook definition.

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

Strawson takes the conventional approach of closely linking free will with moral responsibility, so when he attempts to undermine (his) idea of moral responsibility, he also takes it to be an attack on the idea of free will.

What Strawson means by being 'truly responsible' is being the ultimate causal source of your actions. The key move in his argument against moral responsibility is this:

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

Where Strawson's position is similar to that of compatibilists is in that for him the question of determinism is irrelevant to the question of moral responsibility/free will - only in his case, he argues that "true" moral responsibility is impossible in any event (but those arguments are quite similar to those that have been used by compatibilists).

So whenever a limit is evaluated, it’s correct to use the approximately equals sign (~) rather than equals. — Devans99

No. Look up the definition of the limit in any modern textbook or online reference. Do not assume that what a mathematical notation "looks like" is what it literally means.

This could explain some of the rather peculiar results in calculus? — Devans99

No.

Oops! That explains the striking change of attitude. Thanks for the correction :)

Were I to take up the task of writing a book on free will again, I would read opposing views extensively, as I did for my book on naturalism. Until I do take up that task, Strawson is not likely to be on my reading list. — Dfpolis

Suit yourself. Only why would I bother to read what you have to say, whether in a book or in a forum post, given that you don't know what you are talking about?