[pdonis]

> This kind of reasoning actually does lead to better consequences, not worse.

I strongly disagree. Believing that people don't make choices is just a handy excuse for some people to make choices that cause others to suffer.

See my response to abellerose just now (edit: and my response to you upthread about child trafficking).

[Layke1123]

You can disagree. You can assert that believing people can't make choices in a true sense of free will causes other to suffer. You can also be dismissed for said assertion without providing any evidence.

For instance, if your assertion is true, why do I, as someone who does not believe I make my own choices, do no harm to others? Shouldn't I be on a killing spree according to your logic? Shouldn't I be repressing and hurting people left and right? All I have to do is prove it's possible to not believe you make your own choices and not do harm. That single data point is enough to prove your claims wrong.

[pdonis]

> You can assert that believing people can't make choices in a true sense of free will causes other to suffer.

I didn't assert anything about "believing people can't make choices in a true sense of free will". Nor did I assert anything about individual cases.

Since you are apparently unable to properly understand statements that use terms like "choice", I will rephrase my assertion using your ultra-physicalist language:

There are causal processes that happen inside human brains. Those causal processes have effects outside of the particular human brains in which they take place. Those effects can include effects on what happens to the particular human in whose brain the causal processes are taking place, and effects on other humans besides that particular human.

The question is whether the causal processes that happen inside a particular human's brain have a much greater impact, on net, on what happens to that particular human, than causal processes that happen in other human brains; or, by contrast, whether causal processes that happen in other human brains have a much greater impact, on net, on what happens to that particular human.

My assertion is that a society in which the former is the case will have less human suffering, and more good things, than a society in which the latter is the case.

Note that the effects the causal processes inside human brains have outside those brains, whether on that particular human or on other humans, happen regardless of the beliefs held by the particular human in whose brain the causal processes are happening, unless you count the beliefs themselves as part of the causal processes. Which is fine with me personally, but in fact, in your ultra-physicalist language, the word "belief" is just as out of place as the word "choice"; in your ultra-physicalist language, people don't have beliefs any more than they make choices. But the causal processes happening in their brains have the effects they have regardless of what language you use to describe them. Using obfuscatory ultra-physicalist language to describe them, instead of the common, intuitive language of beliefs and choices that everyone understands, just makes it harder to think clearly about what is going on. It's like doing arithmetic using Roman numerals; yes, it's possible, but it's just making things much harder than they need to be for no good reason.

[Layke1123]

How can you claim things that happen inside the human brain have causal influences on things outside the brain and yet at the same time ignore the causal influences the outside world has on the internal brain processes? Information flow is a two way street if it can happen in one direction as far as I am aware. What you seem to not grasp is the idea that external events can influence your behavior.

[pdonis]

> How can you claim things that happen inside the human brain have causal influences on things outside the brain and yet at the same time ignore the causal influences the outside world has on the internal brain processes?

I have done no such thing. Obviously the causal influences go both ways.

> What you seem to not grasp is the idea that external events can influence your behavior.

What you seem not to grasp is that one of the key roles that causal processes inside a person's brain play is to control how external events influence the person's behavior. The brain is not just a big switchboard where input A always leads to output B. Of course, vastly oversimplifying what actually happens in people's brains in order to avoid having to question one's theoretical model is a common mistake, going back at least to B. F. Skinner.

[Rury]

Ponder this.

Can you ever willfully choose option C, if you never knew or had anything lead you to think that option C was even an option?

Or better yet, can you willfully imagine a new color that's not in any way related to the colors or any combination of colors you've already seen before? Or further, not related to ANY CONCEPT you're already aware of?

You can't. But if you could, how would you ever describe it to someone? After all, if you describe this new color using other ideas you're already acquainted with, then it is thus in some way related to those very ideas used to describe it...

This shows that, any "new" ideas you imagine, are nothing but a combination of ideas you're already familiar with. Otherwise, to become familiar with ideas that are not in any way related to what you're already familiar with, can ONLY come from your senses. Hence, all concepts/thoughts/ideas you ever have ultimately stem from your senses (seeing, hearing, etc).

Since all ideas ultimately originate from our senses, then the thoughts we have and decisions we make are ultimately subject to the stimuli inputted to us. Thus we are as mechanical as anything else in this world. Fundamentally no different than a rock in how it operates on the physical stimuli inputted on it. Granted we are much more complex than a rock and hence have much more complex responses to our stimuli, but nonetheless just as deterministic.

The brain may attempt to control what's external to it, but the way it does so has been programmed from the stimuli inputted on it (from DNA instructions, to nutrition, to physical stimuli).

[pdonis]

> Ponder this.

Everything you're saying is old hat to anyone as familiar with the literature on free will and cognitive science as I am.

Nothing you are saying is in any way inconsistent with the view of free will I have been defending.

[Layke1123]

External events are the only meaningful thing you can experience. Your whole internal world is built entirely around what you experience externally. It's why you don't wall around talking about dead people waking amongst us without having psychologists commit you to intuitions.

[pdonis]

> Shouldn't I be on a killing spree according to your logic? Shouldn't I be repressing and hurting people left and right?

No and no. Nothing I have said implies either of these things.

[Layke1123]

Then why is my outcome not worse for believing I don't have free will?

[pdonis]

> why is my outcome not worse for believing I don't have free will?

You still don't get it. Your brain is doing the thing that I call "making choices", but which I called "causal processes" because you have trouble with words like "choices", whether you believe in free will or not. Those causal processes in your brain have a significant effect on your outcomes, whether you believe in free will or not. And how much of an effect the causal processes in your brain have on your outcomes, as compared with the effect that causal processes in other people's brains have on your outcomes, which is the thing I have said is important, has little or nothing to do directly with whether you or anyone else "believes in free will". It does have to do with whether you and other people respect other people's right to make choices, which I have also said is important.

[Layke1123]

But the has nothing to do with the idea that one has free will, only that I exhibit behavior that allows you to pursue your own desires, I.E I'm not actively harming you or putting you into prison. Redefine what free will means all you want, it doesn't make your arguments any more true.

[pdonis]

> I exhibit behavior that allows you to pursue your own desires

Okay, then please don't rearrange my brain, even if you think it would "improve" some "deficiency" of mine. If we're agreed on that, then I'm good.