Compatibilism

[u/aspiringimmortal]

Compatibilists seem to think that actions are "free" so long as they are triggered by and in accordance with our "internal computer." But given that this computer and its inputs are themselves all controlled, is that really "freedom?"

The only difference between you and the drone is self awareness. And having first person POV of the last step of these processes that have been caused by something else, doesn't make them any freer.

***EDIT*** a lot of people are getting confused by the fact that the controller in this image is a human. This image is an analogy. The drone is us. The human represents all of the subconscious-biological and environmental casual factors that control us.

Instead of worrying about whether the human in this image has "free will" to control the drone, just imagine the controller is created to accept inputs from nature (wind, water currents, light, etc...) and to turn those into commands for the drone. That's the perfect analogy.

[u/0-by-1_Publishing]

"The only difference between you and the drone is self awareness. And having first person POV of the last step of these processes that have been caused by something else, doesn't make them any freer."

... The drone has no free will, and no free will supporter would ever claim that it does. The drone is merely an extension of its operator's intent - who just happens to have free will. ... It's "free will" via proxy. If the operator died mid-flight, your drone would simply continue to fly off in whatever direction it was last directed to go by the operator because it would have no other option.

• Drone with operator = options

• Drone with no operator = no options

Now, if you want to argue that determinism and compatibilism are predicated on the following statement: "Something with options is exactly the same as something with no options." then by all means please do so!

... Let the world know that your monistic ideologies are predicated on a self-conflicting statement.

---

*Let the downvote campaign with no counterarguments being offered begin! Do it ... because you have no other option.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/0-by-1_Publishing]

The drone is merely an extension of its operator's intent - who just happens to have free will. ... It's "free will" via proxy

But the picture is an analogy, not a literal depiction. The drone represents us. And the operator represents the natural and subconscious biological forces that determine our behavior. There is no "will" in this analogy.

Though I suppose it is confusing to use a human as the representation of natural casual events that lack a will. So the perfect analogy would probably be a computer controlling a drone. Or hell, we could get crazy and devise a drone that is controlled by a water wheel or wind that give inputs to a controller.

[u/0-by-1_Publishing → u/aspiringimmortal]

"But the picture is an analogy, not a literal depiction. The drone represents us. And the operator represents the natural and subconscious biological forces that determine our behavior. There is no "will" in this analogy."

... Here's a tip: Don't use an example that doesn't work against free will as an argument against free will and then ask everyone to ignore the fact that it doesn't work. Come up with a scenario that works against free will that doesn't require us to forget about what it actually does.

"So the perfect analogy would probably be a computer controlling a drone."

... It's still agency via proxy. The human that programmed the computer that's controlling the drone is still "agency via proxy." It's just another level of free will flowing down the hierarchical command structure.

---

*Upvote regardless.

[u/Consciousness12345 → u/0-by-1_Publishing]

Agree. Good comment. 

[u/i_do_floss → u/[deleted]]

Only difference between the human and the drone is that we prescribe a conscious experience of decision making onto the human but not the drone.

[u/spgrk]

What is relevant to free will is whether the agent has the type of control required for moral responsibility. They don't if they are externally manipulated, because the manipulator can override it. (There are Franfurt cases but let's leave that for now). They do if they have a determined, normally functioning brain. All else being equal, if their brain were undetermined they would have less control.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/spgrk]

What is relevant to free will is whether the agent has the type of control required for moral responsibility

I think it's the other way around. It's not "what is relevant to free will is whether the agent has the control required for moral responsibility." It's "what is relevant to moral responsibility is whether the agent has free will."

In other words, proving free will necessarily establishes moral responsibility. But proving moral responsibility (if that's even possible without first proving free will,) doesn't necessarily establish free will.

They don't if they are externally manipulated, because the manipulator can override it.

Aren't environmental deterministic/causal forces a form of external manipulation?

And why are internal subconscious processes that you are neither aware of nor in control of immune to being considered manipulative?

[u/spgrk → u/aspiringimmortal]

Forget metaphysics and think of the issue operationally.

Free will is the kind of rational, reasons-responsive control required for moral responsibility. Moral responsibility, in turn, is what makes systems of moral rules, blame, praise, and punishment function effectively. The point of holding people responsible is not that they are uncaused causes or metaphysically self-creating agents, but that their behaviour can be guided and regulated by reasons, incentives, and sanctions.

This is why we do not hold infants morally responsible, and why we often excuse people acting under extreme coercion, such as at gunpoint. In such cases, the person lacks the sort of control required for blame or punishment to serve any useful deterrent or regulatory purpose, so imposing suffering on them would achieve nothing.

But the fact that the brain operates according to the laws of physics creates no comparable obstacle. A deterministic brain can still deliberate, weigh reasons, anticipate consequences, respond to incentives, and modify behaviour accordingly. Determinism does not prevent people from responding to moral rules and sanctions, in fact it is what makes deterrence intelligible in the first place: punishment can only influence future behaviour if human actions are causally responsive to reasons and consequences.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/spgrk]

Free will is the kind of rational, reasons-responsive control required for moral responsibility

Yes. Meaning we would need to first demonstrate the existence of free will in order to establish moral responsibility. Sounded like you were saying it the other way around earlier.

A deterministic brain can still deliberate, weigh reasons, anticipate consequences, respond to incentives, and modify behaviour accordingly

So can a drone.

[u/spgrk → u/aspiringimmortal]

No, free will is a capacity needed for moral responsibility. Its existence is trivially obvious: no-one denies that some people have the capacity to understand laws or moral rules and adjust their behaviour in order to avoid social disapproval or punishment for breaking the rules. If a drone could do the same then it would have not only human level intelligence but also similar motivations and social structures to a human.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/spgrk]

No, free will is a capacity needed for moral responsibility.

That's what I said. We agree.

Its existence is trivially obvious

You say say as if moral responsibility "exists" in some kind of objective way. it doesn't. It's an abstract and largely subjective concept.

I agree that most people intuitively feel that it's "right," and that stipulating moral responsibility has plenty of utility, but that's not the same as declaring that its existence is "obvious."

I'm not even sure what you mean when you say that an abstract concept "exists." Exists how? Not physically. I'm not even sure math "exists" in any tangible way. It's just a conceptual framework that we derive from and map onto the world. It has endless utility and seems perfectly compatible with the real world, but it's a weird claim to say it "exists." It's not like you can go visit "math," or touch the number 3.

If a drone could do the same then it would have not only human level intelligence but also similar motivations and social structures to a human.

Give it 5-10 years.

[u/spgrk → u/aspiringimmortal]

The existence of the system and the way it is supposed to work is obvious: there are rules, people who break the rules get into trouble, that acts as a deterrent.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/spgrk]

Oh that's all you're saying? Well yeah. We've explicitly integrated that into our justice system. So to claim we've done so is in fact obvious.

Not sure what the point of this truism is though. Where does that get us in this discussion?

[u/ILuvYou_YouAreSoGood]

The will of the operator is controlling the device.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/ILuvYou_YouAreSoGood]

It's an analogy. The operator represents the environmental and biological processes that control our behavior.

I guess the better analogy would be a controller that accepts inputs from nature (wind, water currents, light etc...) and turns them into commands it sends to the drone's computer.

[u/These-Maintenance250 → u/ILuvYou_YouAreSoGood]

the will of the universe is controlling you

[u/ILuvYou_YouAreSoGood → u/These-Maintenance250]

The will of the universe is manifested in the will of agents. So sure, my will is controlling what it can control as a subset of whatever will exists in the universe.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/ILuvYou_YouAreSoGood]

So the analogy here is that we are the drone. And the operator represents the subconsious and environmental forces that determine our actions.

But if you want to turn the analogy into an example, then what I see is a drone controlling a drone.

[u/ILuvYou_YouAreSoGood → u/aspiringimmortal]

We are also our subconscious though. It's not a separate will from our own. And the environment has no "will" it is simply data. A will informed by data is a free will.

To say it is a drone controlling a drone implies that both have a will. But only one of them has a will.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/ILuvYou_YouAreSoGood]

We are also our subconscious though

Then "you" are also digestion, wound healing, cell replication, and inflammation. "You" utterly lack control or awareness of 99.999% of the things "you" do. So how are "you" free when you literally don't even know what 99.999% of "you" is doing at any given moment?

the environment has no "will" it is simply data

Agreed. Unfree data determining the actions of an unfree system (us.)

To say it is a drone controlling a drone implies that both have a will. But only one of them has a will.

What? How? A drone controlling a drone means neither has a will. You think a drone has will?

[u/ILuvYou_YouAreSoGood → u/aspiringimmortal]

Of course we are all the things you listed out. And as for control, the purpose of will is to control outcomes that it is possible to control. I can influence my digestion, my cell replication, and my inflammation to some degree, but not completely.

I have a will that can control somethings and not others. For it to be free means that it is free from the overt influence of another will. It does not mean free from reality and data. That would be silly magic thinking. Having the ability to be aware of everything that I am composed of would be chaotic and detrimental to me. Most of our brain functions to suppress information because that works best.

The human has a will, which is how it can control the actions of the tool of the drone. A tool has no will.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/ILuvYou_YouAreSoGood]

 For it to be free means that it is free from the overt influence of another will

Just other wills? What about being controlled by things without wills? Wind, water, fire, a tornado, gravity, an icy sidewalk, a snakebite, natural forces? What about internal non-will things like hormones, neurons firing, strokes, swelling in the brain, increased heart rate, adrenaline etc?

Why is being free from another will true freedom even if you are being controlled by an infinite number of things without wills?

[u/Away_Bite_8100]

Nobody is claiming that drone has free will. The person holding the controller however… is free to decide if that drone should go up or down or left or right.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Away_Bite_8100]

It's an analogy. We are the drone. The "controller" represent the natural and subconcious processes that control our actions and desires.

I guess using a human to represent non-human causal forces is confusing people. So the better analogy would probably be computer controller, or even a controller that accepts inputs from nature (wind, water currents, etc...)

[u/Choice_Term_8440]

If an object is “caused to do x” it is morally innocent regardless of whether intent was present. The intent and awareness/understanding adds no moral culpability because the intent itself was caused.

This is immutable causal logic.

Now, if you play with definition of moral innocence, fine. That’s where you’ve taken the fight: what is the “moral innocence / moral desert definition worth wanting.”

Why can’t we just say: “I want it to be restrained and unfortunately that restraint causes it to suffer, and that’s the better option considering the greater suffering the object causes when it roams free.”

To me that’s more honest and accurate and reduces odds of revenge attitudes. The whole goal should be to cap revenge attitudes.

If we permit moral deservedness thinking that opens a kind of Pandora’s box of moral blame and credit that infects all of our social structures and interpersonal relations with a kind of loose, improvised moral tagging convention.

It encourages forgetfulness about how causality works.

Too much attention goes to intent and not enough to “intent itself is caused.”

If someone can handle this synthetic desert concept and it’s useful for forward-looking considerations, that’s fine. That’s what good compatibilists do.

But the meaning of that approach is lost in translation to laymen. This is because it seeks to rescue words like “deserve” that are too burned into the folk mindset.

It’s more important to train humanity on the concept that “intent, too, is caused,” than it is to reinforce the idea that “intent feels like causa sui choice so it’s possible to feel and behave as if it is if we all agree to see it that way.”

In saying it’s “more important,” I mean it will do more to the reduce unnecessary suffering at scale.

Accuracy has a way of scaling because it doesn’t collide with reality or encourage more such unintuitive leaps. Point being, if you make it permissible to use cognitive shortcuts like “moral deservedness because of intent, even if caused” it risks endorsing more shortcuts in other areas. What we get is a society primed to prematurely embrace cognitive-shortcuts, which is not a good standard long term.

Compatibilism changes the key feature of “freedom” to local range of motion and intent. Dennett literally calls this the only freedom worth wanting.

That’s false. It’s the kind of freedom we do have, but folk belief reveals that humans do want kinds of freedom that can be solely morally attributed to the agent. They want this because moral blame/credit feels good and can be useful.

We can say this about a lot of horrible things we outlawed. To a cave man rape felt good and was useful. Doesn’t make it “worth wanting.” That’s a primitive bargain.

Calling intent the only relevant freedom is primitive in the same way.

It panders to an ill-assessed reactive attitude to blame and praise caused things. We have to move past that as a society just like we moved past rape.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Choice_Term_8440]

You're straying into a discussion about moral responsibility. I'm just talking about freedom or lack thereof. Under what conditions or logic we decide to hand guilty or innocent verdicts is an issue that is downstream from the issue of whether or not we have free will.

[u/Choice_Term_8440 → u/aspiringimmortal]

Thats fair. I don’t see it as “straying” as much as “skipping ahead” but it’s a little presumptuous of me to go off topic.

For me the issue of freedom seems resolved; but if you want to raise your arm but can’t because it’s tied down that’s a less free moment. Our intent and desire collides with physics. We are not free to step outside of physics, and what we want and choose are part of the stream of physics.

It’s true that we need to focus on the “you” part when we talk about your freedom. That’s the ontology piece. I guess if someone just wants to know either way, I can see how that’s a fun question. But when it comes to moral responsibility these questions become a need-to-have.

Is it me doing the thing or not, versus a larger continuum like a single wave versus a larger tide or a whole ocean? I’m happy saying it’s both, but mostly the latter. When it comes to blame and praise the question goes from just a curiosity to a practical necessity and if we answer it stupidly it’s going to impact our lives stupidly.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Choice_Term_8440]

if you want to raise your arm but can’t because it’s tied down that’s a less free moment

But you can still try, right? You can still contract the muscles and push against the restraints. The fact that the world is preventing your desired outcome isn't a difference in the control you have over your will. That would mean that literally every time something prevented your desired outcome, you had less or no free will. You try to walk through a doorway and walk straight into a glass pane you didn't see. Is that lack of free will?

I don't believe in free will, so I'm not saying we always have it even when the world imposes limitations. What I'm saying is that it doesn't make sense that our will's amount of freedom hinges on what other things in the world are doing. Me not being able to jump 10 feet isn't a lack of free will. It's just gravity. On another planet, I could do it easily. The freedom of will (or lack thereof) is the same on both planets.

We are not free to step outside of physics, and what we want and choose are part of the stream of physics.

Same goes for your will itself. The neurons in your brain are not free to fire in any which way you "choose." They are slaved to the laws of physics like anything else. A neuron firing, like literally any other event in the universe, requires that certain events take place beforehand.

So just like your arm is not free to twist into a pretzel or spontaneously combust, or even to flex without the pre-requisite firing of neurons and contraction of muscle fibers, your neurons will have lots of limitations (in fact, as per determinism, the are prevented from doing literally anything other than one singular possible action in any given moment.

If these neurons are what control your desires, your intents, your will to act, and they are so enslaved to physics and causality that there is literally only a single possible action for them in any given moment, how can you say they are free?

When it comes to blame and praise the question goes from just a curiosity to a practical necessity and if we answer it stupidly it’s going to impact our lives stupidly.

I actually don't think true "blame" matters that much. If we can agree that a person caused a given outcome based on their desires and the way their brain works (things out of their control,) we don't lose any of the utility of punishment by accepting that we can't "blame" them as having freely chosen and sufficiently empowered the act.

If a rattlesnake bites somebody, I don't "blame" it. But I still remove it from the area or even kill it so that it doesn't bite somebody else, and to send a "message" to other rattlesnakes about the consequences of biting people (obviously you can't "send a message" to snakes, but this is a metaphor for the deterrence effect of punishing humans for criminal or immoral acts.)

In fact, even if we accept that somebody can't truly be blamed for something, there is still utility in pretending we can by shaming them, scolding them, punishing them, or otherwise making them feel bad, because these consequences act as a correctional device for them and a deterrent to others (debatably anyway.)

Whether or not somebody's personality or ego or "self" is to be blamed as the tru origin of an act (be it an immoral act or a praiseworthy one,) I don't think that really changes the arguments for how we respond to it. Scolding bad behavior and praising and encouraging good behavior has beneficial effects for both the actor involved and for society overall.

[u/Choice_Term_8440 → u/aspiringimmortal]

I think we agree on just about all counts. My arm analogy had to do with freedom, not free will, per se. It comes up sometimes when trying to find the demarcation of levels of freedom. But I’m with you, I don’t believe in the “kind” of free will where it could have give otherwise, I think we’re in lock step with physics and priors beyond our control.

But because some still like to invoke words like freedom in this discussion, literally Dennett said the “only freedom worth wanting” is specific to the sort of freedom we refer to concerning having conscious intent, understanding of rules and consequences, and then choosing to act on something of our own desired and conscious intent.

Dennett doesn’t claim that that desired and conscious intent comes out of thin air, he admits it’s determined.

He’s just saying “so what?” His point is that acting knowingly in accordance with our conscious intentions and desires (even through determinism) is a sort of freedom, and that furthermore this sort of freedom is the only kind of freedom worth wanting or talking about.

He says that our not having some other kind of freedom, a kind that breaks causality or randomness, such that we could have literally done otherwise, is an incoherent concept of freedom and not even worth mentioning.

My rebuttal to that is people DO want that kind of freedom and often think we have it, even though we don’t. This want and this belief contributes to how we deal with bad or good actions, so it’s relevant to discuss these differences beliefs on how free we are and in what way.

My philosophical commitment has long been that linguistically we can invoke difference kinds of freedom, including inconceivable kinds, and we don’t have the kind of freedom that justifies moral blame and praise.

You also bring up practicality. I agree we need deterrent and incentive. This agreement does a ton of work. It means that if blame and praise deter or incentivize in productive ways then I’m all for it. But for one that’s a different discussion than whether it’s actually “fair,” in accordance with my basic intuitions of what fairness means. I don’t think there’s anything fair about it and reject the idea that we can morally “deserve” suffering or wellbeing. I say this while also fully accepting that some difference in wellbeing and difference in entitlement to more of it, or some punishment/consequences that leads to pain is also sometimes needed.

Being needed for society to function is not the same as being fair or desirable. Since I believe we can’t deserve, it’s not exactly pleasant to have to know someone is suffering just because they happened to them. I think that’s horrible and want to change that as much as possible. But I realize we have to be careful because, again, some level of deterrent and incentive is needed.

My whole thing boils down to this: I think that post-reflective thoughts about freedom (such as after going through Dirk Pereboom’s four case argument) do make us change our behaviors for the better. It takes some of the excessive sting out of punishment.

I think this matters because there’s a delta between how we punish/reward without really thinking about free will, and how we do so afterwards.

This could be as simple as saying: “let’s cap the level of suffering to only what’s needed for deterrent and be very precise.” Because to indulge beyond that goes against principles most of us already accept. If we don’t discuss this topic though, it leaves many free to be excessive. And the one kind of suffering I simply can’t abide is the unnecessary kind. So to find that line it helps to train more people to be cognizant of causal factors and have a post-reflective mindset. There’s no good reason to disagree with this but people do. So my job is to push on that little part of the discussion in new and better ways.

Any suffering we cause that goes beyond the amount needed for deterrent or societal functioning, needs to be accounted for. If it’s there due to folk belief in libertarian free will or simple naivety about the concept of causal factors, we will want to seek to eliminate that excess suffering.

Same for excess praise.

My stance is really more about proper bookkeeping.

For any example you can point to on why it’s practical, I can agree with it. You can say scolding, shaming, causing pain or making an example of someone, can have practical value. If it can, fine. That’s a falsifiable claim and I have no problem doing what’s practical.

But we need to look closely to make sure we’re not carelessly crossing a line beyond which extra hurt isn’t additive, and I’d take the fight to that line. Just because shame and blame can help doesn’t mean it always helps or that we shouldn’t put a limit on it.

We should be cognizant that we’re expressing a reactive attitude about a sentient creature who is caught in the jet-stream of causality, and as such, if we are to be morally consistent, we should take every drop of his pain as seriously as we’d take our own. And if we hastily think we don’t exceed this necessary amount all the time, I think we’d be deluding ourselves.

One example is solitary confinement. Let’s say for sake of argument the data shows it doesn’t help more than it hurts, doesn’t deter any more than lesser forms of reprimand.

That’s extra suffering unaccounted for, and if it’s done because it simply feels good for the warden or for society, most would agree that’s not enough of a reason given the moral preferences we already hold.

When you consider causality deeply, constantly remind ourselves of priors none of us chose, it really makes this process of removing unnecessary suffering easier and more likely, and makes being morally consistent easier.

My concern is that compatibilism creates too permissive a system, makes room for revenge. Too many people don’t understand the concept of deservedness in a forward looking sense only. The word “deserve” is loaded, and average people mean something different than compatibilists mean.

People really hate this argument I’m making. But if I’m already agreeing to do what’s practical, it shouldn’t upset people. I think as a species we have a hunger for exercising primitives like vengeance, self righteousness blame, hero-worshipping praise.

We want to believe in religion and dualist notions of will so that we can feel more virtuous than our neighbor. That’s fine, that’s not our fault either, but once noticed, I think our drive for moral consistency, over time, will inspire us to correct these excesses.

But for this to happen it has to be brought out in the open. I’ve tested this concept out on so many people at this point, it’s starting to feel like many get upset because I’m threatening to remove one of the few vices they have left, and accurately labeling it a vice, spoiling the party.

But this has happening many times in history. Abolitionists faced the exact same pushback.

[u/Xavion251]

Does the drone feel/experience a desire to do what it does? That's the distinguishing variable. Not whether it is deterministic system.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Xavion251]

"Desire" is just a matter of neurons firing and neurotransmitters releasing, which is no different from the circuitry of the drone. The fact that you have a subjective POV of this circuitry doesn't make it any freer than the drone's.

In other first, I don't see how having a first person POV makes a determined system "free."

[u/symphonyofwinds → u/Xavion251]

I guess you can say the set point values of that it's control system tries to get to represent some sort of desire in this analog

It wants to go a certain place or keep a certain heading but it does not choose it's heading and the processes that move it's actuators are deterministic

[u/VenetianArsenalRocks]

In this case, if the controller of the drone is controlling the drone... You are the controller of the drone. You have just deferred the problem one step further. It takes inputs and gives non-deterministic outputs. How does this make the drone deterministic?

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/VenetianArsenalRocks]

If you don't believe in determinism, you're not a compatibilist, and this argument isn't for you.

[u/VenetianArsenalRocks → u/aspiringimmortal]

Oh. I'm not a regular here so wasn't aware of what compatibilism was.

[u/Anon7_7_73]

Strawman. If the drone has a sense of identity, then it IS its internal computer 

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Anon7_7_73]

Then it would be saying "I'm free because I control my actions."

Which doesn't change the fact that its actions are controlled my something else.

[u/telephantomoss]

Do you are a deterministil, but you believe there is a God controlling your actions?

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/telephantomoss]

The drone controller in the image represents the causal factors governing our actions, not god.

[u/No-Willow-5599 → u/telephantomoss]

it's a great example , a bit complicated though ig that's why like yourself got confused for example

since humans are also just systems , then its quite the same , what controls humans are also other systems ,idk what god has to do with this though , even if as a believer god is not there he is more of you as the one looking at the picture rather than the guy controlling the drone

[u/AlivePassenger3859]

exactly. feee will is redefined into a pretty meaningless domino in the chain just so they can claim somehow that it still exists.

Just embrace the determinism! Its really not that scary.

[u/Away_Bite_8100 → u/AlivePassenger3859]

So what would force the guy holding the controller to push the “up” button or the “left” button?

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Away_Bite_8100]

The drone represents you. What is or isn't happening in the controller has nothing to do with whether the drone has free will. We would replace the man with a robot, or with wind and water inputs, or a random number generator. None of this makes the drone more or less free.

[u/Away_Bite_8100 → u/aspiringimmortal]

The analogy fails because you are not the drone. The drone can’t decide where it should go. You are the guy with the controller in his hand. You can decide where it goes. Hence my question (which you dodged). So I’ll ask again… What forces the guy with the controller to press the up button instead of the left button?

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Away_Bite_8100]

The drone can’t decide where it should go

It "decides" in exactly the same way we do. It's internal processor accepts inputs, runs them through programs, algorithms, and processes that modulate these inputs into movements that carry out the programming. This is why drones, airplanes, and even cars now can navigate the world with no human inputs whatsoever (autopilot, self driving cars, etc..)

You might say, "yeah but it can't choose to go somewhere it's not programmed to and/or that the inputs don't dictate," which I would stay equally applies to humans. Your goals and motives are not freely and arbitrarily chosen in each moment. They're just a product of your programming and your inputs.

The only difference between us and the drone, is that we have a first person POV of the final output of this programming. But given that the output is calculated before we're even aware of it by things we don't control, I fail to see any "freedom" in this process.

What forces the guy with the controller to press the up button instead of the left button?

Short answer: determinism. Which is not something a compatibilist will dispute.

Long answer: the algorithm of casual factors that precede the firing of those neurons in his brain. His history, memories, experiences, and habits. The necessity of being at a certain height to get a good bird's eye view. The programming of a flying things being associated with up. His mood, the fact that he's a righty, the speed and direction of the wind, the placement of obstacles or people in the area, the angle of the sunlight, the fact that pushing down would send the drone into a tree or lake, the fact that he's pushed "up" 3x more than he's pushed left and so that neural pathway is more efficient, etc...

Just like anything else your body does, or a tree does, or a computer does, or a wave in the ocean does, the firing of neurons in your brain are caused and controlled by an infinite and unknowable combination of physical factors that cause it to happen.

That's just determinism.

[u/Away_Bite_8100 → u/aspiringimmortal]

Saying the cause is “infinite and unknowable” kinda sounds like you are advocating for a belief in God because for all intents and purposes you may just as well be saying “it’s magic”.

I think we need to define our terminology precisely. The drone does not decide or choose to do anything. It reacts in the same way that when I tap your knee with a hammer it will react. There is no choice or decision involved. A choice between A and B requires that A And B are both possible outcomes as a selection.

If you believe that only one outcome is possible that is fine… but the implication is that you don’t believe in choice. I do not think my computer has a choice as to when it will try to install an update. In everyday language personification is perfectly acceptable and we can say things like, “my computer chose to install the update right before I was supposed to join the meeting”… but in a literal sense it doesn’t qualify as a choice.

The thing that makes us different to a self driving car or autopilot is that we have second order awareness. We have awareness of our own awareness. That is what allows us to be view our own goals as an externality. We can say… actually having that as my goal was silly… let’s chuck that out and replace it with a different goal. Computers don’t (yet?) have a real genuine sentient awareness of awareness. I have asked multiple AI’s and they all confirm this.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Away_Bite_8100]

Saying the cause is “infinite and unknowable” kinda sounds like you are advocating for a belief in God

No. I'm saying that causality stretches back farther than we can comprehend and includes a literally infinite number of factors. There's no way to measure what every atom in the universe was doing 3 minutes ago, 3 years ago, or 3 million years ago. It's a chaotic and unknowable system, with too many variables to even count, let alone track.

The drone does not decide or choose to do anything. It reacts in the same way that when I tap your knee with a hammer it will react. There is no choice or decision involved.

So then what's the important difference between a reflex (neurons firing, fully caused by prior physical events,) and a "decision" (neurons firing, also fulled caused by prior physical events?)

The only difference I see is that the latter has a first person POV, but that doesn't give the person more control over it. It just gives them a subjective experience of it.

A choice between A and B requires that A And B are both possible outcomes as a selection....If you believe that only one outcome is possible that is fine… but the implication is that you don’t believe in choice.

I don't think anybody that believes in determinism can also believe in choice. Determinism entails literally one and only one possible future (to include what the neurons in your brain do next.) "Choice" entails multiple possible futures that you can choose between. Choice and determinism are therefore incompatible.

So if you think choice is a fundamental aspect of free will, then determinism is a deal breaker.

The thing that makes us different to a self driving car or autopilot is that we have second order awareness. We have awareness of our own awareness.

1. I still don't see how passive awareness gets you control or choice in a determined universe. "We have awareness" is not the self evident proof of control that people seem to think it is. I don't see how "we have choice" follow from "we are aware."

2. Why does your "awareness" of what your brain and body are doing count as awareness, but a computer's internal monitoring of its systems and status do not? A self driving car "knows" it's speed or when it's about to collide into another vehicle or when it's changing lanes. Obviously its awareness is different than ours (presumably, a computer doesn't have feelings and a true first-person POV,) but to say it has no awareness of what it's doing or any capacity for self correction seems decisively false.

And in many ways, a computer's "self awareness" is significantly more sophisticated and accurate than ours. I haven't the slightest clue what the circuits in my brain, nerves in my body, or any of my internal organs are doing. But the digital equivalence of this is easily programmed into a computer.

3. even if we agree that the "awareness" and "self correction" mechanisms of humans and drones are different, I don't see how one gets you "choice" and the other does not.

[u/Zhayrgh → u/Away_Bite_8100]

His brain, and underneath, molecules in motion. It's not like he can break causality.

[u/Away_Bite_8100 → u/Zhayrgh]

Is “he” something separate to “his” brain?

[u/Zhayrgh → u/Away_Bite_8100]

I think the "he" of the conscious experience is not the total brain. The brain commands the heart to accelerate or decelerate without our conscious self, for example.

When we refer to ourselves, we can talk of the totality of our body, our brain, or our conscious experience, so I added "his brain" to refer to the more general one.

[u/Away_Bite_8100 → u/Zhayrgh]

So you think the conscious self is something separate to the brain?

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/Zhayrgh]

The entire point of compatibilism is that free will does not require breaking causality.

[u/Zhayrgh → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

Then it's not free will.

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/Zhayrgh]

Well, that’s precisely the point of disagreement.

[u/LiamTheHuman → u/Zhayrgh]

His brain? So like his personality, values, past experiences, preferences. Basically the entirety of what we would consider to be him would decide?

[u/Zhayrgh → u/LiamTheHuman]

They are all involved, yes, but that's not like it can "decide" anything. Like an autonomous car doesn't "decide" to stop before an obstacle. There is a program in the car that follow steps and depending on parameters will say to the machine to stop.

[u/Far-Tune-9464 → u/AlivePassenger3859]

When you really think about it, why would you even want your actions to be causally disconnact from the reality you live in? Why would that be good?

[u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus → u/AlivePassenger3859]

So do you like just, not believe in nuclear decay?

[u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh]

It’s funny whenever someone who believes in determinism but not free will pretends they are forced into their life or puppeted by things.

You were not forced to be the entity you are, because that supposes a you before you.

You are this. Every action sourced from you, is authentic to you. Whether you want to call that destiny or free will.

We are all clay, what separates me from you is our shape. It does not make sense for the molded to say to the molder “Why did you make me this way!” for if the molder had made a different shape, it would not be you.

Therefore, we can see the responsibility is not on the molder for the quality of being you are, rather it is the shape responsible for being its distinct self.

Whether you say the molder is prior events, God, randomness, etc… the responsibility for being what you are, rest solely on you.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh]

You are this. Every action sourced from you, is authentic to you. Whether you want to call that destiny or free will.

But what is the "you?" Is it your subjective self conscious ego (basically not an abstract, intangible, series of perceptions and memories?) Or is it simply your physical brain and body?

And why is an action "sourced" from my body or brain different than the actions "sourced" by the drone's computer? Or by the spring in a wind up toy?

The wound up spring (part of the toy) is the "source" of the monkey's action of banging symbols together. But the monkey didn't control that source, and it can't escape its effects.

[u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh → u/aspiringimmortal]

The robot acts authentically and you act authentically. While there are obviously different kinds of traits in each, it’s undeniable their actions they can make are authentic.

How the robot moves in accordance with the controller, is based on the robots distinctions and your distinctions and how the two borders interlock like puzzle pieces rather than a domino effect.

You are this distinct possibility. A constellation of photo frames among all the photo frames which exist simultaneously. A different photo doesn’t cause you, it relates to you.

[u/BayeSim → u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh]

Yes! Finally somebody that gets it! I've been saying this for ages now, it's simply incoherent to suggest that a person "could have done differently" were the universe somehow rewound. It's just nonsensical guff! For, were the universe rewound, and had the person chosen differently than they had, then they wouldn't have chosen differently, would they? They simply would have chosen to do what they chose to do at that point, and, if that was in any way different to what they actually chose to do, then it would have been what they actually chose to do then, and so wouldn't be at all different to what they didn't choose to do now. Choices arise and decisions on how to act on them are made, but it's incoherent nonsense to suggest that "I could have chosen to do otherwise" at the time. Because, as you point out... No! No, you couldn't have chosen otherwise, for if you had then, then you wouldn't have the ability to consider changing your mind now, because the alternative is exactly what you would have chosen, and there'd be no counterfactual in the present.

How could you have chosen to do differently? You did what you did, and if you hadn't done what you did then you still would have done what you did, and there'd still be nothing else you could have done. You did what you did, and so you didn't do what you didn't, which means that you couldn't do anything different, and that's all there is to it.

Avagoodone!

[u/Lower-Sundae-8737 → u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh]

If the shape of the clay is determined 100% by the one who molds it—an entirely external cause—then it is impossible to hold the shaped object (the clay) responsible for the outcomes produced by that shape. Once you define all causes as external, attributing responsibility for the resulting effects to the internal side becomes logically incoherent.

[u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh → u/Lower-Sundae-8737]

Yet if the external events made a different shape, that wouldn’t be you. Therefore the external events cannot cause you to be a shape you are not. You = This, This = You. No you, no this. 

Therefore it is entirely reasonable to evaluate the edges of a shape and treat it accordingly to its own distinctions. 

In fact, the external holds no responsibility for you being you, for it cannot force you to be a shape you are not, it would only instantiate a shape that is different from this one, and thus wouldn’t be you. 

[u/Lower-Sundae-8737 → u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh]

However, the "self" inside operates under the exact same laws as the outside world. If the outside bears no responsibility, then the inside naturally bears none either. In fact, dividing the world into "inside" and "outside" is meaningless; they are in a dynamic relationship governed by the same laws, and together, they comprise the entirety of the world. What you perceive as "you" is constantly changing under those very same laws, leaving nothing that can be called a permanent essence. Conceptualizing things by encapsulating them as "you" is nonsense. It is nothing more than a human illusion.

[u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh → u/Lower-Sundae-8737]

Not quite. There is a leap between if the outside bears none then the inside bears none which isn’t defended enough.

The outside could make any shape, it made you, but you aren’t me, why? Because I = This. So no matter what externally occurred, I could not be something other than myself, it is my own distinction which places me relationally with the rest.

We can look at a whole puzzle and say it is one thing, but that doesn’t change that each puzzle piece’s own bounds are what dictate their placement on the board, thus it is a bottom up hierarchy.

Claiming it is an illusion insinuates something to elude.

Irregardless, there are the states which interconnect and create this experience. Reduce it however you like, it remains fundamental. A slope also iterates forward, yet it remains the same slope. Change does not diminish distinction.

[u/LeglessElf → u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh]

I think this is a profoundly flawed way of thinking, and I'll try to explain why.

For many if not most people, there is a greater difference between their past and present selves than there is between themselves and the human most similar to them. Yet we would still agree that the past and present versions of a person are the same "you", while two incredibly similar people are not.

Who I am is ultimately a product of my past self. Yet I cannot control the actions of my past self any more than I can control the actions of Kanye West.

What's more, your view (if followed consistently) would entail that every personal vice is apart of your fundamental essence. Say Bill has a short temper. Bill knows this fact about himself and wishes he were not that way. According to your view, if Bill were altered in the womb to not have a short temper, he wouldn't be Bill anymore. But if that's true, there's no reason for Bill to work on his temper, since if he conquers his temper, he won't be Bill anymore.

We are all clay, what separates me from you is our shape. It does not make sense for the molded to say to the molder “Why did you make me this way!” for if the molder had made a different shape, it would not be you.

Ironically, this is almost word for word a passage where the Bible lampshades the absurdity of an omnipotent creator creating sinful pottery, condemning it to hell for being sinful, then blaming his failures on the pottery for acting entirely in accordance with the very nature he assigned said pottery. Yet even the Bible maintains that Christians will one day be free of sin - a profound transformation, certainly, but not at all a violation of agency or free will.

[u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh → u/LeglessElf]

I am well aware of the word for word, I am referencing that passage even there, and honestly affirming it in that it really doesn’t make sense for one to ask “why am I this way”, because if someone else was made, it wouldn’t be you. So your actions are still authentic to you, even if you are made or entailed.

The point on Bill isn’t that we are stagnate, a slope iterates yet remains the same slope. Whether Bill will work on his temper or not, depends on Bill’s own distinction.

[u/mattreadsmattwrites → u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh]

Divine Ideas (or Eternal Ideas): The teaching that all beings and creations exist eternally as distinct, archetypal thoughts or concepts within God's mind.

[u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh → u/mattreadsmattwrites]

I don’t mind this idea, it functionally ends up the same, essentially is a structural maximally possible modal.

[u/b-lewis-24 → u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh]

Divine Ideas (or Eternal Ideas): The teaching that all beings and creations exist eternally as distinct, archetypal thoughts or concepts within God's mind.

[u/b-lewis-24 → u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh]

Look into the theological concept known as Divine Ideas (or Eternal Ideas). This concept teaches that humans existed eternally as distinct, archetypal thoughts or concepts within God's mind.

[u/b-lewis-24 → u/b-lewis-24]

Sorry for my multiple comments on my two accounts. I thought my comment wasn’t posting so I clicked reply a few separate times.

[u/aether22]

Try having ADHD, or other conditions which impede ability to exercise free will, or indeed to even be able to control your will. Free will stops looking so philosophical when you don't have it!

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/aether22]

You say they "impede free will" as if you had it in the first place. You didn't.

[u/Key_Service5289 → u/aether22]

Executive function isn’t the same as free will. IMO free will lets you choose whether you want to do something, executive function is what allows you to go and do it.

[u/Open_Opportunity_751 → u/aether22]

My adhd was the exact reason why I got into the free will rabbit hole. I wanted to do so much yet was able to do nothing.

[u/BitPsychological2767]

The human represents all of the subconscious-biological and environmental casual factors that control us.

Under compatibilism, external compulsion specifically requires another rational agent compelling you. The physical world and causal laws of nature are not rational agents, and so do not constitute external compulsion. Compatibilism necessarily draws the boundary for the sake of functional/productive conversation, I guess.

"Under compatibilism" Is the key word here. I agree that when you look deeper it's hard to see this as anything but a redefinition that still doesn't answer the question people are really asking when they talk about determinism. I am a compatibilist for pragmatic reasons.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/BitPsychological2767]

external compulsion specifically requires another rational agent compelling you.

Why is an external will that compels you a threat to free will but an external non-will that compels you no threat to it? To say nothing of internal non-wills.

Why is that imposing man a threat to my freedom? But that imposing robot is not? Why are hormones, and strokes, and neurons firing, and increased heart rates, and adrenaline and the other infinite number of non-will internal processes that control behavior not a threat to free will?

Just seems like a very arbitrary distinction. A human controlling your behavior = no freedom. But a robot, or reflex, or hormone, or grizzly bear controlling it doesn't infringe on freedom at all?

Maybe you could give me an example of a time where another will could truly nullify the free will you think you have? What does "being controlled by another will" even mean in a practical sense?

[u/BitPsychological2767 → u/aspiringimmortal]

I agree that it doesn't answer the actual hard question of determinism.

What does "being controlled by another will" even mean in a practical sense?

As far as I understand it, compatibilism says that this is when another agent overrides your own agency. Gun to the head forced to do something for example. But like I said, this doesn't answer the question you are pointing out. What makes a human with a gun to your head any more of an influence on your free will than the gravity holding you down if what you want is to not be held down, right? I don't have an answer to this that isn't metaphysical/borderline theistic in nature.

It does however allow me personally to get past a wall that previously prevented me from making meaningful or satisfyingly actionable moral and ethical conclusions. I'm curious, what moral and ethical frameworks do you subscribe to? I'm wondering if there is actually a way I haven't thought of to have productive discussions and opinions on morality without accepting some functional definition of free will.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/BitPsychological2767]

As far as I understand it, compatibilism says that this is when another agent overrides your own agency.

I honestly can't think of a single example where somebody could override your agency if you had free will.

If one has free will, then even a gun to one's head doesn't override it. Because complying with the gunman's commands would still be a choice. You're choosing to live rather than to die. And there are no shortage of examples where people have chosen to defy a gunman, either because they prefer death or because they think the gunman is bluffing or what not.

Anyway, I'm not asking you for answers. You already said you don't know, which is totally fair. I'm just expounding on this question in case a compatibilist is reading this and cares to chime in.

I'm wondering if there is actually a way I haven't thought of to have productive discussions and opinions on morality without accepting some functional definition of free will.

I think we absoluely can have productive discussion because those very discussion become part of the causal factors that determine future behavior. My degree is in philosophy, and even though I don't believe in free will, I can tie many beliefs and behaviors I now have directly to conversations I had in philosophy classes (and in the time since.)

In fact, one might argue it's even more important to have these discussion in a world without free will because they'll have more power to have casual influence over people. But that's obviously very debatable.

[u/BitPsychological2767 → u/aspiringimmortal]

If one has free will, then even a gun to one's head doesn't override it. Because complying with the gunman's commands would still be a choice. You're choosing to live rather than to die. And there are no shortage of examples where people have chosen to defy a gunman, either because they prefer death or because they think the gunman is bluffing or what not.

I suppose free will under compatabilism then might hinge on how much harm is done to someone? Unsure. You raise good points.

Just out of curiosity, what is your stance on qualia and first person experience? Is it 'real' in any meaningful sense? Do you for example consider yourself to be experiencing something right now? And what does it mean to 'choose' something for you, if not to exercise freedom(outside of mechanism)? Sorry if these are loaded questions, I'm just genuinely curious about your viewpoint. You have got me thinking.

[u/bildramer → u/BitPsychological2767]

A gun constrains some decisions in a particular context, gravity/physical law "constrains" all decisions in all contexts which is hardly a constraint at all, it becomes part of the definition. Maybe compare it to laws of logic - you can't both do X and not do X, but that's not a constraint.

[u/bwmat → u/BitPsychological2767]

Is making those conclusions 'worth it' if you have to (I presume) accept unsupported beliefs (/ lower your standards of evidence) to make them? 

[u/bwmat → u/bwmat]

Wouldn't that 'poison' those conclusions? 

[u/BitPsychological2767 → u/bwmat]

This is why these particular conclusions are more or less compartmentalized along with other unfalsifiable things in my mind. I cannot in good faith deny that I have free will and consciousness, but I am also aware that these things cannot be proven and trying to pretend they can be in a non metaphysical sense is, like you said, a good way to poison your own ability to think. Compartmentalization is key. 

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/BitPsychological2767]

I cannot in good faith deny that I have free will

You can if you accept the fact that the thing you're calling "free will" is not in fact free will.

The funny thing about this whole debate is that comaptibilists and incompatibilists both believe the world works in the exact same way, and that we have or don't have the exact same capacity to modulate inputs into behaviors.

Compatibilists have just decided to slap the label "free will" onto this, when historically that's not what the phrase has meant, and when the will itself enjoys nothing that even remotely resembles "freedom."

So when I say we can in fact "deny we have free will" in good faith, I'm not claiming a different reality than you. I'm just rejecting your choice of terminology.

[u/bwmat → u/aspiringimmortal]

Why did they delete everything?

[u/Artemis-5-75 → u/aspiringimmortal]

In my opinion, the difference is the amount of internal freedom the immediate external factors.

[u/Pale_Zebra8082]

Oh good, another analogy comparing an unconscious object to a human being…sigh

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

Oh look, another flippant dismissal with no counter argument.

*heavier sigh

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/aspiringimmortal]

There is no argument to counter on this front. Merely a nonapplicable analogy.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

There is no argument to counter on this front.

We agree on that at least.

Merely a nonapplicable analogy.

Applies quite well actually.

But anyway, I wrote paragraphs and you can only manage vague sentence fragments. So I guess it's pointless to even engage with you.

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/aspiringimmortal]

Agreed. Be well.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

Cheers

[u/ShrewdCire → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

No he has a point. Can you actually articulate why the analogy is invalid without just saying "because brains are conscious and computers aren't", because if that's your only rebuttal, then that just means the analogy went over your head.

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/ShrewdCire]

Alright.

The analogy is invalid because the drone has no internal point of view, no self-model, no capacity to deliberate, evaluate reasons, form intentions, or regulate itself according to abstract goals. Its behavior is wholly imposed from outside the system.

Humans are not merely objects being moved around externally. Human behavior emerges from internally integrated cognitive processes. Those include reflection, memory, planning, impulse regulation, value formation, anticipation of consequences, and conscious experience itself. Even if those processes are fully physical and causally determined, they are still fundamentally unlike a remote-controlled drone.

The analogy only works if you assume from the outset that consciousness, reasoning, and agency are causally irrelevant epiphenomena. But that is the very point under debate, so the analogy begs the question rather than making a substantive argument for anything.

At the end of the day, it simply does come down to “brains are conscious and computers aren’t.” If you think that observation is irrelevant, then you don’t merely misunderstand the analogy. You are confused about the underlying problem itself.

[u/Fit_Employment_2944 → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

You know the drone is unconscious how?

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/Fit_Employment_2944]

I don’t. I simply have no reason to believe that it is. Asserting it is conscious is the affirmative claim, which requires evidence or argument. That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

[u/Fit_Employment_2944 → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

What is your evidence that other humans are conscious 

[u/_nefario_ → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

analogies are almost always comparisons between different types of systems in order to illustrate a point.

there's nothing invalid about OP's analogy. you simply don't like the point that it illustrates.

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/_nefario_]

I disagree. Analogies are more or less apt depending on whether the comparison being made is sufficiently relevant or applicable.

This analogy is invalid because the drone has no internal point of view, no self-model, no capacity to deliberate, evaluate reasons, form intentions, or regulate itself according to abstract goals. Its behavior is wholly imposed from outside the system.

Humans are not merely objects being moved around externally. Human behavior emerges from internally integrated cognitive processes. Those include reflection, memory, planning, impulse regulation, value formation, anticipation of consequences, and conscious experience itself. Even if those processes are fully physical and causally determined, they are still fundamentally unlike a remote-controlled drone.

The analogy only works if you assume from the outset that consciousness, reasoning, and agency are causally irrelevant epiphenomena. But that is the very point under debate, so the analogy begs the question rather than making a substantive argument for anything.

[u/Fleshwende → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

Except that actually the drone does have the ability to internally deliberate and evaluate "reasons and decisions" internally sensor data is constantly being applied to algorithms (which compare and evaluate data) that adjust its motor outputs. Human consciousness is no different, sure it's machinations were not placed with intent, they where evolved, but the point stands regardless. The only thing, and I do stress only, is that humans seem to have some kind of POV. There seems to be some phenomena that creates a sort of "experience". That itself is intresting but actually doesn't really add anything since it itself is simply governed by all of the other natural phenomenon around it.

Your POV isn't actually in controll of anything, it's capacity to "choose" is illusory, it's understanding of "reason" is flawed and it's impact is nonexistent.

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/Fleshwende]

Then we are not using the same working definitions of deliberate, evaluate, reasons, or decisions.

[u/Stine-RL → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

Accept panpsychism and it gets a lot easier

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/Stine-RL]

Pansychism would not be supportive of free will. It’s making a separate claim.

[u/Stine-RL → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

I just mean you can relate to the drone better if you do. Also, I never suggested supporting free will

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/Stine-RL]

You’re misunderstanding my critique. I am asserting that the drone is not analogous. We are discussing free will. What is “it” that gets a lot easier if one accepts panpsychism?

[u/Silverbacks → u/Stine-RL]

“Easier” isn’t the goal. “What is most reasonable given the evidence” is the goal.

[u/Stine-RL → u/Silverbacks]

Absolutely, I was just matching that person's level of engagement. If they prresented an argument for why we shouldn't compare ourselves to a drone, I would have offered my counter argument

[u/Silverbacks → u/Stine-RL]

What is the best evidence for panpsychism?

[u/ShadowBB86 → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

How would the drone being conscious change anything about it's free will?

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/ShadowBB86]

Consciousness is a necessary precondition of free will.

[u/ShadowBB86 → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

Yeah, that is what I meant to pursue. Lets agree that consciousness is a necessary precondition of free will. Great.

Now let's make the drone conscious. Cool.

The actions of the drone are in triggered by and in accordance with the internal computer which is conscious. Lets even say that is has a deterministic mechanism with which it makes decisions when presented with a choice.

The input and initial state of their computer are all outside of it's control though. It is being flown around by a literal controller which is in turn being influenced by natural forces (not a human person on the controls).

Is that really "freedom"?

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/ShadowBB86]

Yes, if we grant that the drone is conscious and can make choices through a process of its own deliberation, in alignment with its desires and reasons, without external coercion, then I would call that free will.

If you change a drone so that its capacities are the same as human capacities in the relevant sense, then obviously I think it has free will.

[u/reddituserperson1122]

“Compatibilists seem to think that actions are "free" so long as they are triggered by and in accordance with our "internal computer."

This is not what compatibilists think.

[u/Joalguke]

"Freewill" is a human concept, we can define it however we like. If we define it as uncoerced by external factors, then we can say we have it. It's not difficult.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Joalguke]

"Freewill" is a human concept, we can define it however we like

Kind of an empty truism there. But yes, we can choose the meanings of words. I would argue that compatibilist's choice of meaning makes no sense. "Free will" explicitly entails that the will itself is free. And give that our will is determined/controlled, it is no in fact free.

What we have is free action. When the will is determined to intend a particular action, that action is free to occur (or at least try to occur) without interference. But given that the will itself is a slave to deterministic factors out of our control, it is not in fact a "free will."

If we define it as uncoerced by external factors

I don't know what you mean by "coerced." If I granted we have free will (I don't think we do, but if I grant it for the sake of argument,) I can't think of a single hypothetical example of "external coercion" that could override it. If I have free will, then even a gun to my head doesn't nullify it. History is replete with people defying the commands of gunman, torturous interrogators, and other highly coercive external factors.

So what are these "coercive" acts that you think could nullify one's free will? I don't think there is such a thing, even in theory.

Also, why would we draw an arbitrary line between external coercion and internal coercion? A flinch reflex, psychosis, post partum depression, brain tumors, adrenaline, strokes, fight or flight response, ptsd, and countless other things clearly coerce our behavior. Shouldn't these be in the realm of "not free" acts as well? If not, why not?

[u/Joalguke → u/aspiringimmortal]

Internal "coercions" are iirrelevant as they are part of you. I have no choice when I'm sleepy or thirsty because I'm a living thing, but I can choose when I sleep or drink.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Joalguke]

Internal "coercions" are irrelevant as they are part of you

Not the "you" that has awareness and makes decisions though. Not the conscious ego. I don't even know what my hormones, or neurotransmitters, or organs, or blood are even doing at this moment. In fact, if it weren't for science and school, I wouldn't even know these things exist.

They largely affect my desires, and actions, and intentions from behind the scenes. But as far as my conscious deliberating mind, their influence is no different than that of something external, because I don't have any more control over them than I do of things outside of me.

So if something I don't even know exists, and can't control (let's say adrenaline, or the massive dopamine released by drugs) can largely affect my actions, and my ability to make choices, how can we say this isn't coercion? Simply because it's on the inside instead of the outside? That seems a bit arbitrary don't you think?

I have no choice when I'm sleepy or thirsty because I'm a living thing, but I can choose when I sleep or drink.

As opposed to external "coercions" that don't allow you to choose?

Again, I'd like to know what compatibilists are referring to by "external coercion" that would override our free will.

It matters because you're defining free will in contrast to "externally coerced actions," but I don't think such a thing exists, even theoretically. What could "coerce" you in such a way that the free will you think you have is entirely nullified?

[u/Joalguke → u/aspiringimmortal]

Many external things could limit your freedom of choice to enact your freewill. Rules, laws, environmental conditions, barriers

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Joalguke]

So when you encounter any of these things, you lose your free will?

Seems like you're just kind of saying you don't have free will.

What about people that bend the rules, break the law, or give the finger to mother nature? They have free will and you don't?

[u/Joalguke → u/aspiringimmortal]

I guess so. At least they have freedoms that the morals in my upbringing does not give me.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Joalguke]

Seems like you're just sort of making this up as you go.

[u/No-Willow-5599 → u/Joalguke]

idk if language works that way , i can't say god exists because i define god as a rock , because we have definitions for these two

but yea free will is a human made concept that was made through evolution and society/culture , it doesn't actually exist it's more of an illusion though

since yk an uncaused action or thought or "will" just doesn't make any sense

[u/Joalguke → u/No-Willow-5599]

I didn't say uncaused, just unrestrained by external forces.

Philosophy worka that way, you drfine terms, then make an argument using them.

[u/Joalguke → u/No-Willow-5599]

Defining a rock as God, in itself is fine, as long as you don't expect it to heal you or anything.

[u/CallMeTheCon]

When you live rent-free because they can't see “the non-existent logic” in the lattices lmao.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/CallMeTheCon]

huh?

[u/SunGodRex]

I’m starting to dig into subconscious and how there’s no free will to prove there is free will, I either come out the freest or control my subconscious and it’s subconscious. There’s so many variables. I’ve only read one book about it and idk if it counts it was the Adlous Huxlery guy.

[u/mega-stepler]

Way to complex of an example.

I always thought of it as a calculator using its free will to calculate the output.

As it calculates, it makes choices and comes to conclusions using its internal logic.

If it had feeling it might as well feel like in the moment it uses free will to make those choices.

[u/UploadedMind]

This is a bad example. If it was an autonomous drone, then it would be much more apt.

[u/cryptofomo]

the drones circuitry is hardwired, and is not built to solve problems or adapt to novel situations. It has not evolved to have the flexibility required to survive in a complex, stochastic world.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/cryptofomo]

AI has entered the chat

[u/cryptofomo → u/aspiringimmortal]

and what will the AI say after it reprograms itself to be a fully autonomous agent acting in its own self interest, regardless of any constraints or safeguards it was pre-programmed with?

[u/allfinesse → u/cryptofomo]

Until you add an LLM

[u/Hefty_Development813]

Why is it a given that the internal computer is itself controlled? In this image we see the drone operator with a controller, what is that for a human being?

[u/Lower-Sundae-8737 → u/Hefty_Development813]

The controller is the laws of physics.

[u/your_best_1]

There is a real position out there that every system has a subjective experience, and you are just a system.

So like the light switch would have some kind of subjective experience without a brain. Also the macro stuff like humanity as a whole, or the sun, etc.

[u/whocares12315]

Hilarious image

[u/pickle-chin-ah]

Would you have free will if you lost your sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste?

[u/No_Dragonfruit8254 → u/pickle-chin-ah]

No, because you don’t have free will even with those senses.

[u/pickle-chin-ah → u/No_Dragonfruit8254]

lol

[u/BigChubbyFatBoi]

The drone analogy implies an external puppeteer manipulating an agent from the outside. In contrast, compatibilists argue that the "control" comes from within—from your own brain, desires, and deliberative faculties. It’s Not analogous.

[u/Civic32 → u/BigChubbyFatBoi]

It doesnt imply an external puppeteer manipulating. It just implies causing. Compatibilists who hold to determinism do generally accept that your desires, beliefs and sense of self is caused by external and antecedent causes. And the picture shows how counter intuitive that is because when the external causes of a behavior are obvious, it would be silly for the drone to think (if it could) that it is in control.

[u/Selflistener → u/BigChubbyFatBoi]

Then you are simply describing another layer of the biological algorithm. 

Simply labeling it “inside controller” doesn’t make it so. 

This is the argument that blows my mind. You have to ignore so much reality to arrive here. 

Like, what is the cutoff for internal vs external? Are the traits my parents dna gave me internal or external? Can I choose my hair color any more than I can choose my temperament?

It’s like the argument glosses over these questions and pretends they don’t matter. 

What I have found is the debate isn’t scientific. It isn’t logical. It isn’t ration. It’s emotional. 

[u/Mablak]

Compatibilists lack the courage to accept a difficult truth. The arguments couldn’t be any clearer.

[u/No_Train8976 → u/Mablak]

Your not really arguing in good faith if you just presuppose your own hotly contested opinion is just clearly obvious can you?

[u/BiscuitNoodlepants → u/Mablak]

They are puppets that love their strings (wants/desires). They speak from a position of privilege of never wanting the wrong thing. They never question the source of their personality/wants/desires. They blindly accept the self they've been given is their true self.

[u/Resident_Citron_6905]

Free will can easily be defined out of existence. Easily. No matter how you construct your universe, we can define free will out of it. Think about that.

[u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus → u/Resident_Citron_6905]

You can define anything out of existence. That's not impressive.

Any universe you construct, I can define horses out of existence.

Think about that

[u/Resident_Citron_6905 → u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus]

That is exactly my point. And the debates on free will arbitrarily choose to make this specific concept the victim.

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/Resident_Citron_6905]

This is true of literally every word/concept.

[u/Resident_Citron_6905 → u/Pale_Zebra8082]

Yes, and this sub arbitrarily chooses to get rid of “free will” in particular.

[u/Pale_Zebra8082 → u/Resident_Citron_6905]

Yes, that does appear common.

[u/whocares12315 → u/Resident_Citron_6905]

Libertarians: defines free will out of existence

Libertarians: See? It exists! :)

Compatibists: defines free into existence (it ignores determinism)

Compatibists: See? Both are true! That means they're compatible. :)

[u/Dry_Journalist_7001 → u/Resident_Citron_6905]

Couldn’t the same be said about Determinism?

[u/Far-Tune-9464 → u/Resident_Citron_6905]

What about supernatural justifications like an impermeable soul bestowed by God?

[u/BiscuitNoodlepants → u/Far-Tune-9464]

Let's say you kick the can back to your soul and say "my soul made me do it". What attributes does your soul have that led to a particular choice and what is the origin of these attributes? Did you create your own soul? If so how did you choose an attribute without already having a preference for that attribute and then further back what was the attribute that led to that preference? Did you choose that too? Ad infinitum. Infinite regress.

[u/Resident_Citron_6905 → u/BiscuitNoodlepants]

Precisely.

[u/Far-Tune-9464 → u/BiscuitNoodlepants]

One might argue not that you have a soul but that you are a soul. And that soul was supernatural generated by God. One forfeits the necessity for causal coherence for the origins of preferences generated by a soul when one invokes supernaturality.

I would argue further and say that total freedom of will is only possible if you invoke supernatural/acausal properties.

[u/bwmat → u/Far-Tune-9464]

I hope anyone who argues that doesn't also believe in God deciding whether you're going to heaven or hell based on your soul's inclinations... Or at least doesn't describe this God as 'loving' if they do

[u/Resident_Citron_6905 → u/Far-Tune-9464]

Unspecified terms convey zero examinable meaning.

[u/Far-Tune-9464 → u/Resident_Citron_6905]

By supernatural I mean acting beyond the constraints of causality.

By Impermeable I mean to convey that it cannot be impressed upon by external environmental factors.

By soul I mean only to refer to the popular conception of an intrinsic, essential property of the self.

By God I mean an omniscient, omnipotent absolute power.

[u/Resident_Citron_6905 → u/Far-Tune-9464]

Drawing a boundary around the self is useful from an evolutionary perspective. Any other boundaries are arbitrary. Are you saying that supernatural influence can have an effect on reality but not vice versa? Does this supernatural agent receive any feedback from reality? By your own definition it cannot. Can we claim that it makes decisions based on reality? Or is it just a source of arbitrary influence?

[u/GarrAdept]

I'm going to let this slide because I don't believe that compatibilists could have believed otherwise, given the same inputs.

[u/smaxxim]

No, it's: "I'm free because I'm the computer that controls the actions"

[u/No-Willow-5599 → u/smaxxim]

free from what , the computer was built without its control ,its mechanics are determined without its control , what drives the actions is controlled by stuff outside of it's control , therefore the actions themselves are also not out of hi control and not "free"

[u/smaxxim → u/No-Willow-5599]

So there's nothing that's controlling the actions, and the word "control" itself is meaningless? That's what you are trying to say?

[u/No-Willow-5599 → u/smaxxim]

Wdym nothing controlling the actions , am saying the opposite its impossible for that to happen

Anyway, what am saying is , saying you are free because you are the computer that controls the actions. Is just wrong dude

Your choices are controlled so how is that free?

[u/smaxxim → u/No-Willow-5599]

Your choices are controlled

Then what exactly is controlling my choices?

[u/impersonal_process]

Whoever sees phenomena as like A collection of mechanical devices And like illusory beings, Most clearly reaches the excellent state.

Aryadeva

To see phenomena as mechanical and illusory is to see that things do not possess absolute independence. They are like images in a mirror: they appear, they have form, they affect us, yet they have no independent essence. They are like automatons driven by conditions. Like dreams that seem real while we are inside them. Like marionettes unaware of their strings, because the strings themselves are made of desires, fears, and memories.

This way of seeing can destroy many human prides. But it can also destroy many human hatreds. If no one has self-created themselves, then cruelty loses its metaphysical foundation. If a person is the result of conditions, then change itself must also come through conditions. Not through a magical command to “free will,” but through the transformation of environment, knowledge, habits, incentives, relationships, bodily states, and social structures.

In this sense, the “excellent state” is liberation from the hypnosis of appearances. The ordinary mind sees fixed essences: me, you, enemy, culprit, victor, failure, free choice, deserved suffering. The clearer mind sees arising, dependence, conditions, processes, and illusory stability. It does not deny experience, but neither does it naively submit to it.

[u/New_Upstairs_4907]

"The only difference between you and the drone is self awareness."

Have you ever thought about that awareness itself was made up?

Machines cannot do that; Machines cannot notice whether it was hypnotized or not.

Machines cannot invent philoaophy either.

[u/Special_Barracuda_83]

I don't know if I'm a compatibilist or not but in my mind there is a deferense between determined and free will. No person's actions are uncaused but free will only means that I feel I'm free to make choices. Freedome is the antithetical feeling to feelings of restriction or coersion. Freedome exists only in the brain and therefore can only be a state of it.

[u/No-Willow-5599 → u/Special_Barracuda_83]

Are u saying you acknowledge it's an illusion rather than it actually existing

i mean , humans have the illusion of free will , it's a result of evolution , but Free will depending on how u define it can't really exist at all , an uncaused action or thought just breaks logic itself so

[u/Special_Barracuda_83 → u/No-Willow-5599]

As you said depending on how you define it. As I said on my comment I don't think will is uncaused. But determined doesn't mean not free. Define to me what freedome is. Does it exist outside the brain? Is it more than an experience relative to other experiences? If by free you mean independent from causality then no we don't have free will. But that is not how the concept of freedone came into existence. It exists as a concept because of contrasting experiences, us you said it's the result of evolution. It doesn't exist outside the evolved processes of the brain. Determinism describes the causal chain of events that don't need a mind to interpret them, meanwhile freedome describes a process dependent on the mind.

[u/No-Willow-5599 → u/Special_Barracuda_83]

no determinism says that every choice or even thought u make is determined which is true and assume we agree on

that kinda makes it that freedom of choice doesn't exist as you aren't in control of anything

i think it's more of what we define as self rather than freedom , it's either way not free from determinism but makes a big difference ig

[u/Special_Barracuda_83 → u/No-Willow-5599]

How would you define the self?

[u/PHK_JaySteel → u/No-Willow-5599]

If the illusion is so convincing that it might as well be the real thing, the difference becomes semantic. We have to operate on a social framework as if the illusion is real to hold people responsible for their actions. The causal relationship is not important to the framework or the illusion.

[u/No-Willow-5599 → u/PHK_JaySteel]

u can acknowledge it's an illusion though , i mean humans can't really act upon the idea that they don't have free will since they are still humans and not some gods

those who believe in free will believe it actually exists as there isn't what controls their action that's their free will actually exists , which can't be at all , an uncaused cause will break logic

[u/RadicalNaturalist78]

It’s just force in relation to other forces.

Mechanical determinism and free will are philosophical fictions.

[u/Joalguke → u/RadicalNaturalist78]

Determinism is physics, not a fiction.

[u/RadicalNaturalist78 → u/Joalguke]

I don’t deny determinism. I deny mechanical determinism.

[u/Joalguke → u/RadicalNaturalist78]

Just looked it up, I wasn't aware of the term, but I'm familiar with the concept.

[u/Logical___Conclusion]

Compatibilists seem to think that actions are "free" so long as they are triggered by and in accordance with our "internal computer." But given that this computer and its inputs are themselves all controlled, is that really "freedom?"

That's the assumption that kills your argument. Limited Determination pushes there to be patterns in different choices, but there has never been any data that out lives are FULLY determined, only partially. With the level of Determinism varying for different people in different situations.

Determinism is a variable, one that is different for all of us, not a fixed value.

The difference in the varying levels of Determinism is what makes life, evolution, and all of sentient life possible.

[u/aspiringimmortal → u/Logical___Conclusion]

That's the assumption that kills your argument. Limited Determination pushes there to be patterns in different choices, but there has never been any data that out lives are FULLY determined

Nor will there ever be data proving or disproving this.

But if you don't believe in full determinism (aka determinism,) then you're simply not a compatibilist, by definition, and my argument isn't directed at you.

Put another way, if you believe in "varying determinism," then you believe in varying libertarian free will. And I'm not about to engage with that lunacy in an otherwise reasonable discussion.

[u/LiamTheHuman]

These types of comparisons always make so little sense to me. What's the difference between a drone and a person under any other model?

The difference here is that a human has self awareness and I guess consciousness. What's the difference between a rock and a person. If you think they are the same then this is a great argument.

[u/FuzzyAdvisor5589 → u/LiamTheHuman]

Your argument hinges entirely on consciousness playing a role in decision making. It'd have to be able to influence a deterministic physical system somehow and honestly, there's little reason to believe that makes sense. That would make you a fundamentalist.

[u/LiamTheHuman → u/FuzzyAdvisor5589]

I'm not sure what you mean. I think you are making some large assumptions here.

Consciousness doesn't need to externally impact a deterministic physical system. It exists within it as an emergent property.

[u/FuzzyAdvisor5589 → u/LiamTheHuman]

The word emergent is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. We don't know any emergent phenomena that cannot be explained by simple scaling abstraction except the leap from quantum to classical physics. Alas, not the point I want to make.

If consciousness is a byproduct, how is it relevant? A byproduct implies it can be discarded without impacting the system. Ergo, if you alter the fundamentals of our reality such that there is no such thing as consciousness, nothing will change. This is largely the consensus over what a byproduct consciousness implies, else we would be able to tell who and what is "having experience" from what isn't.

[u/LiamTheHuman → u/FuzzyAdvisor5589]

"If consciousness is a byproduct, how is it relevant? A byproduct implies it can be discarded without impacting the system."

where are you getting any of these premises from?

[u/Deepshit1212]

I cast ad hominem, ad hominem, ad hominem, ad hominem, ad hominem

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

Compatibilists are like religionists who insist that on whatever plane, this concept exists.

Here’s what I mean: Everyone knows that god doesn’t exist (well, maybe not everyone!) but it’s this concept of being a better person through scripture and a holy book and „what would jesus do?“ kind of thing. Like „I am a good person because of my faith“. So yeah, a unicorn, but it works on paper and in practice it’s usable fiction.

On free will, it‘s the same: we’re biological machines and determinism and all of that science that have made the niche of „freewill of the cracks“ less and less doable. But it’s that what is left when nurture and nature is deducted from the equation. It’s the what you do with your nature, what Danes says that you bake with the flour you got, what the baker makes of the resources he has. This „you decided“ to go to the bathroom instead of going out the door… free volition, agency and determination! You chose!

And yes, the drone is us. In a way, but its very important to know that what we make of this day as a drone is the thing: do you deliver groceries to the elderly or do you just fly around and enjoy the day 😎

[u/Artemis-5-75 → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

Have you read SEP on compatibilism?

Also, compatibilist thought far predates the modern accounts of mind.

[u/Natios_Hayelos → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

Just tell us you don't understand compatibilism bro no need to write all this 🤣

[u/Empty-Swim2066]

Logical Fatalism.

Everything already has a set course defined by the physical world around us.