(August 20, 2016 at 9:32 am)bennyboy Wrote: You are trying to equivocate between agent and not-agent.  The Rhythm algorithm IS YOU, and it is free to respond however it wants to the environment.  That you now call it the "Rhythm algorithm" and not just "me, doing stuff I like to do," is never ever going to happen outside the confines of this kind of debate, methinks.

No, how it responds to the environment is already determined, and it isn't trivial.

(August 20, 2016 at 9:38 am)RozKek Wrote:

(August 20, 2016 at 9:32 am)bennyboy Wrote: You are trying to equivocate between agent and not-agent.  The Rhythm algorithm IS YOU, and it is free to respond however it wants to the environment.  That you now call it the "Rhythm algorithm" and not just "me, doing stuff I like to do," is never ever going to happen outside the confines of this kind of debate, methinks.

No, how it responds to the environment is already determined, and it isn't trivial.

It is responding according to its nature without impediment, based on its intent and its desire to express that intent.  That's free will.

That it has a nature, does not establish that it is free...and it's patently and demonstrably -incapable- of acting on that nature..whatever it is, free of impediment in the first place.  It contains it's own damned impediments and is surrounded by impediment.  

-but ignore all of that above. We don't -need- to quibble over any of it to understand each other's positions. If you're comfortable with an algorithmic rhythm being "free" then you must also be comfortable with a pcs algorithms, or a thermostats, as being "free"...hence my criticism that this is a trivial sort of "free"...-not- that the phenomena is trivial, or that the terms referent doesn't exist...etc.

(August 20, 2016 at 7:25 am)bennyboy Wrote:

(August 20, 2016 at 6:27 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: Compatabilist free will isn't an illusion because it's merely the will labeled as free will.

No, it's not.  It's will which is free from external compulsion or obstruction.  That's what "free" means.

Our normal human will is like that anyway the vast majority of the time.

(August 20, 2016 at 7:32 am)Gemini Wrote:

(August 20, 2016 at 3:10 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: Rawr! I love it when you go all phenomenological on me

I can geek out over phenomenal consciousness all day with the right turtle

Yes please. As a sapiosexual it makes me feel tremendously good in my balls.

(August 20, 2016 at 9:32 am)bennyboy Wrote: You are trying to equivocate between agent and not-agent.  The Rhythm algorithm IS YOU, and it is free to respond however it wants to the environment.  That you now call it the "Rhythm algorithm" and not just "me, doing stuff I like to do," is never ever going to happen outside the confines of this kind of debate, methinks.

b-mine

I missed this one.....wait.....what?  

Clear something up for me....is it a problem that I equivocate between the "rhythm algorithm" and "me"...or -is- it me...and  thusly, equivalent........

(August 20, 2016 at 7:54 am)Gemini Wrote:

(August 20, 2016 at 3:15 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: No kudos required, I'd happily kudos myself for this one... this post was too pontificantingly pretentiously verbosely pedantically awesome to be arrogant

I'll kudos it anyway, because I love pontificatingly pretentious verbose pedantic awesomeness.  

Yay! That's sexy

I also love my pontificatingly pretentious verbose pedantic awesomeness and I enjoy being an intellectually sexy beast.

Quote:We're not very far apart on this. I think the reason I'm a compatibilist is because I think when people refer to "free will," they're referencing the phenomenology of decision making, and not the metaphysical model of contra-causal free.

I think they're conflating the two like laypeople do (like that rhyme? )

They are indeed referencing the phenomenology of their decision making but they also simultaneously believe they can do otherwise when they cannot.

So many times in life I have said "Oh sorry it didn't occur to me" when I had a brain fart about something important and they said "Well it should have occured to you." Silly buggers I can't contra-causally force that thought to occur into my phenomology.

Many many people think their wills are absolutely free whenever their wills are not not constrained. They believe in constrained compatabilist free will/unconstrained contra-causal free will. They mistakingly think that when their wills are not constrained or coeerced that they have full freedom. They do not and they only think they do because they haven't thought it through enough.

I agree with Spinoza on the matter: Spinoza believed that people believe they have free will simply because they do not know the causes of their own actions so they assume it is themselves.

Their thoughts pop into their phenomenology and because they do not know the ultimate sources (which are unconscious and ultimately completely outside of themselves because they live in an environment and universe which they are not remotely separate from) they mistakingly take credit for them. "I am thinking this" they say... but there is no separation from that thinking and the 'them' that is supposedly thinking it. It's not something they are doing it's who they are. They can't think the thought before they think it, they cannot force they thoughts into their head when their conscious self that they identify with is not remotely separate from those very thoughts and in the present moment (which is the only tense of time we are ever actually living in) is our conscious self and identity.

Quote:Now I'm going to say "phenomenology" again and eat more chocolate cake while drinking a dark Italian roast with lots of cream and sugar. OM NOM NOM!

Tasty. And I'm not even talking about the cake. Yum. Phenomenology.

(August 20, 2016 at 10:23 am)bennyboy Wrote:

(August 20, 2016 at 9:38 am)RozKek Wrote: No, how it responds to the environment is already determined, and it isn't trivial.

It is responding according to its nature without impediment, based on its intent and its desire to express that intent.  That's free will.

It's nature and the way it responds is also determined.

IDK if I'd go so far as to say it -is-....particularly since the acknowledgement that it's possible, and that we have good evidentiary reason to suspect that it may be, is a sufficient response.

It's an evidenced plausibility that must be excluded, in any rigorous description of a non-trivially "free" will.

(August 20, 2016 at 10:54 am)RozKek Wrote:

(August 20, 2016 at 10:23 am)bennyboy Wrote: It is responding according to its nature without impediment, based on its intent and its desire to express that intent.  That's free will.

It's nature and the way it responds is also determined.

It doesn't matter if the self is determined.  What matters is that it can form intent and act on it freely.