There was some literature I read about consciousness being an effect of action, not a cause, but I can't remember who the hell wrote the original or what book I read it in.
Basically, there's a pretty decent argument that it's the brain's justification organ or somesuch.
Loren Michael on
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
The "I" is quite real, because I am it. The illusion is the things I could do being things that I actually will do. There's always the same pressures and environmental reasons why I don't do a lot of things, and why I do do other things.
It is arguable that the entire process of consciousness is simply the machinations of the brain-machine absorbing it's environment to choose how to operate it's output apparatus.
While I think it is necessary to demarcate the notion of the subject/agent, if not let me know and we can stop.
You say that the "I" is quite real, because "you are it." I think you are failing to recognize that, in your scenario, the self too arises from the brain's mechanical properties creating an environment in which to act. If we are determined to act in a certain way, there is no self, there is no "subject." There is just the human animal, which is just a fancy vehicle to carry genes. (Which, itself, is just a beautiful result of atoms moving in a particular way.) You cannot believe the self is anything other than a virtual phenomena resulting from reflection if you are a biological determinist.
Free Will: I am always-already "somewhere" where forces are acting upon me. My there is where the sum total of relations in which I stand. I am free, however, to act upon some of them. I am (theoretically) free to get a sex change, free to vote republican, free to become a vegetarian, free to kill myself. I am free to hate those forces which oppress me, free to love someone who loves me. I am free to recognize myself as an individual, as a person, as a subject. I have FREEDOM to act, freedom to agency.
This is self-defeating. It works because you think you can act. The point is there's always a reason you won't - the illusion comes after, when you think "well I could also have done this".
Do you think that even the "I" is an illusion?
The interface of consciousness and self with will is an interesting one, and important to the discussion, so here's how I see it:
the I, the awareness of self and of being, is something I can't explain. As a materialist, I am sure that consciousness is a material process, but I don't understand it. However, personality, taste, etc, all the elements of identity, can be explained and deterministically charted by the material function of the brain. Consciousness itself, then, seems to be simply an observer riding along in the deterministic vehicle of the identity. I don't think they're actually separate; in fact, they are so closely linked that we often think the consciousness has a controlling power.
The "I" is quite real, because I am it. The illusion is the things I could do being things that I actually will do. There's always the same pressures and environmental reasons why I don't do a lot of things, and why I do do other things.
It is arguable that the entire process of consciousness is simply the machinations of the brain-machine absorbing it's environment to choose how to operate it's output apparatus.
While I think it is necessary to demarcate the notion of the subject/agent, if not let me know and we can stop.
You say that the "I" is quite real, because "you are it." I think you are failing to recognize that, in your scenario, the self too arises from the brain's mechanical properties creating an environment in which to act. If we are determined to act in a certain way, there is no self, there is no "subject." There is just the human animal, which is just a fancy vehicle to carry genes. (Which, itself, is just a beautiful result of atoms moving in a particular way.) You cannot believe the self is anything other than a virtual phenomena resulting from reflection if you are a biological determinist.
Which is, indeed, more or less what I believe to be true.
The practical reality of that is virtually nil for me, though it does have - as I have said before - some useful guiding ideas when we go to implement policy that will affect other peoples lives, or ask the question "why do people act like that?"
It ties back to the thing I agreed with that Yar said - since free will is an illusion that you are apart of, within the illusion you most definitely have it.
Yes, but you wanted to go there and you wanted to eat them because of the invisible hands of your environment twisting and tuning the knobs of your genetics. Any choices you have are chosen by the time you realize your decision.
but, I mean, you make is sound like a bad thing almost. Your environment is everything that has ever happened to you. Every experience you've had. It's this mind numbingly complex and beautiful process, infinity more complex than anything accounted for by simple free will, and you make it sound as if you're being manipulated.
It's what makes us, 'us'. What 'decisions' we make are the net result of everything that has come before, of everyone we've interacted with. Aren't we neat machines.
Quite frankly, I don't see what it changes. Your example, well... There are a lot of people who don't feel strongly about determinism, that believe the criminal rehabilitation system should live up to it's damn name. I don't know, mostly religious folks to be honest. I was raised a quaker, and they were all over that shit, and I'm pretty sure they don't believe in determinism, almost totally sure.
Wanting better jails just take compassion. If your actions are dictated by determinism, you should seek to create a good an environment as possible for all the little machines to live in, particularly those ones you care about. How's that diffrent from someone who's actions aren't influenced by having acknowledged determinism?
Yes, but you wanted to go there and you wanted to eat them because of the invisible hands of your environment twisting and tuning the knobs of your genetics. Any choices you have are chosen by the time you realize your decision.
but, I mean, you make is sound like a bad thing almost. Your environment is everything that has ever happened to you. Every experience you've had. It's this mind numbingly complex and beautiful process, infinity more complex than anything accounted for by simple free will, and you make it sound as if you're being manipulated.
I think Loren would agree it's a beautiful process, he's just using language in a way to make his point more strongly.
Your point about what constitutes "you" is important though; free will would mean being free of the identity that has been constructed by your life, which would just make you insane and chaotic.
and ultimately determinists argue that nothing changes when you acknowledge determinism, except that you get rid of whatever illusions accompany the idea of free will and free agency, ideas like vengeful retribution as justice being one of them.
Yes, but you wanted to go there and you wanted to eat them because of the invisible hands of your environment twisting and tuning the knobs of your genetics. Any choices you have are chosen by the time you realize your decision.
but, I mean, you make is sound like a bad thing almost. Your environment is everything that has ever happened to you. Every experience you've had. It's this mind numbingly complex and beautiful process, infinity more complex than anything accounted for by simple free will, and you make it sound as if you're being manipulated.
Sorry, most of the illustrative analogies I know on this subject are typically along the line of the one in the thread title.
Personally, I feel like it's actually refreshing, in a kind of empty Zen way. There's no reason for hatred of individuals when the causes are outside of the perpetrator. Ever since I got to where I've been, mentally, for the past year or so, almost all of the anger I ever had is just gone. I mostly just feel sad, hopeful, and happy these days.
Wanting better jails just take compassion. If your actions are dictated by determinism, you should seek to create a good an environment as possible for all the little machines to live in, particularly those ones you care about. How's that different from someone who's actions aren't influenced by having acknowledged determinism?
It depends on the person and ideology being compared, I guess. I have a feeling I wasn't making a lot of sense to a lot of people here in my recent religion thread, but you might consider reading a little of what I said there. I have to go to bed soon though, so I can't expound too much right now, sorry.
Will is not defineable; like most mental terms, it is conceptually irreducible. However, I would say that a being has free will when it can make decisions. A decision occurs when multiple, mutually exclusive actions of non-zero probability under consideration by a mind collapse into a single possible action without the field of action* changing.
A couple of things follow from this.
1)It is impossible to predict the outcome of a decision with certainty (free will requires indeterminism).
2) Freedom is a scale; actions are more or less free, depending on how likely they were. This tracks with our commonsense understanding of coercion - a man with a gun to his head is less free because he is overwhelmingly likely to do whatever the guy with the gun says.
3) It is possible to be deceived about how free one is. How likely you think it is that we are deceived depends on your position on the nature of minds. Physicalists have to believe we are deceived or accept some special physics for the brain, which is highly implausible.
4) A person who is not free is not morally accountable for his actions. Moral responsibility requires that a person was free to do otherwise. Under the assumption of freedom, a person who jumps off a roof onto someone is different from a person who falls off a roof onto someone. On a deterministic account, in both scenarios the man on the roof was equally helpless to stop his fall.
*The subset of the world which informs the deliberation over actions occurring in the mind; for example, the flavors of ice cream available to someone deciding what to order.
Physicalists have to believe we are deceived or accept some special physics for the brain, which is highly implausible.
Why? I would suggest it's much more implausible that there is some immaterial, irreducible force outside of the material realm that can nevertheless influence it and be influenced by it, yet reside apparently outside of the realm of causality as well.
Physicalists have to believe we are deceived or accept some special physics for the brain, which is highly implausible.
Why? I would suggest it's much more implausible that there is some immaterial, irreducible force outside of the material realm that can nevertheless influence it and be influenced by it, yet reside apparently outside of the realm of causality as well.
The physics doesn't have to be "special," either.
I was saying special physics for the brain is highly implausible - hence, indeterminism is highly implausible to a physicalist. Whether the physics would have to be special for decisions to occur in a brain is debatable - I've argued against it before - but most physicalists assume that this is the case, so I see no reason to worry about it.
For anyone claiming determinism exists when applied to the decisions of human beings: Is there any difference between a system being completely deterministic yet also completely unpredictable (because prediction would require an accuracy of measurement which would violate the uncertainty principle) and a system being non-deterministic?
I don't think there is any meaningful difference between the two.
Furthermore, if something is unpredictable not just because we lack the tools or computing resources to predict it but because it would indeed require measurements more accurate than is physically possible due to uncertainty this means it could never become predictable (barring, of course, a major overhaul of physics as we know it today).
I think it is extremely easy to show that human behavior is influenced by events which are, and always will be, within this threshold. And thus human behavior is, and always will be, at some level non-deterministic.
Physicalists have to believe we are deceived or accept some special physics for the brain, which is highly implausible.
Why? I would suggest it's much more implausible that there is some immaterial, irreducible force outside of the material realm that can nevertheless influence it and be influenced by it, yet reside apparently outside of the realm of causality as well.
The physics doesn't have to be "special," either.
I was saying special physics for the brain is highly implausible - hence, indeterminism is highly implausible to a physicalist. Whether the physics would have to be special for decisions to occur in a brain is debatable - I've argued against it before - but most physicalists assume that this is the case, so I see no reason to worry about it.
Ahhh, that makes much more sense then, my bad. Carry on.
For anyone claiming determinism exists when applied to the decisions of human beings: Is there any difference between a system being completely deterministic yet also completely unpredictable (because prediction would require an accuracy of measurement which would violate the uncertainty principle) and a system being non-deterministic?
I don't think there is any meaningful difference between the two.
Furthermore, if something is unpredictable not just because we lack the tools or computing resources to predict it but because it would indeed require measurements more accurate than is physically possible due to uncertainty this means it could never become predictable (barring, of course, a major overhaul of physics as we know it today).
I think it is extremely easy to show that human behavior is influenced by events which are, and always will be, within this threshold. And thus human behavior is, and always will be, at some level non-deterministic.
I think you are conflating determinism with Laplace's Demon, as Richy did in my last thread, and (I am lazy) I may have included in my OP for this thread.
For anyone claiming determinism exists when applied to the decisions of human beings: Is there any difference between a system being completely deterministic yet also completely unpredictable (because prediction would require an accuracy of measurement which would violate the uncertainty principle) and a system being non-deterministic?
I don't think there is any meaningful difference between the two.
Furthermore, if something is unpredictable not just because we lack the tools or computing resources to predict it but because it would indeed require measurements more accurate than is physically possible due to uncertainty this means it could never become predictable (barring, of course, a major overhaul of physics as we know it today).
I think it is extremely easy to show that human behavior is influenced by events which are, and always will be, within this threshold. And thus human behavior is, and always will be, at some level non-deterministic.
That's not really the point. Whether or not we can tell what's going to happen has no bearing on the question of free will. If we are operating deterministically, but we can't predict the future, we still don't have free will. Ignorance != free will. Randomness != free will.
For anyone claiming determinism exists when applied to the decisions of human beings: Is there any difference between a system being completely deterministic yet also completely unpredictable (because prediction would require an accuracy of measurement which would violate the uncertainty principle) and a system being non-deterministic?
I don't think there is any meaningful difference between the two.
Furthermore, if something is unpredictable not just because we lack the tools or computing resources to predict it but because it would indeed require measurements more accurate than is physically possible due to uncertainty this means it could never become predictable (barring, of course, a major overhaul of physics as we know it today).
I think it is extremely easy to show that human behavior is influenced by events which are, and always will be, within this threshold. And thus human behavior is, and always will be, at some level non-deterministic.
That's not really the point. Whether or not we can tell what's going to happen has no bearing on the question of free will. If we are operating deterministically, but we can't predict the future, we still don't have free will. Ignorance != free will. Randomness != free will.
This is exactly the point I disagree with. What is the difference between an unpredictable system and a non-deterministic one? I agree that theoreticially the two cases are different but could an oberserver ever be sure of the difference?
How often has the weather made an important difference in someones mood, actions, thoughts on both a minor day-to-day level and in the grand events of history?
For anyone claiming determinism exists when applied to the decisions of human beings: Is there any difference between a system being completely deterministic yet also completely unpredictable (because prediction would require an accuracy of measurement which would violate the uncertainty principle) and a system being non-deterministic?
I don't think there is any meaningful difference between the two.
Furthermore, if something is unpredictable not just because we lack the tools or computing resources to predict it but because it would indeed require measurements more accurate than is physically possible due to uncertainty this means it could never become predictable (barring, of course, a major overhaul of physics as we know it today).
I think it is extremely easy to show that human behavior is influenced by events which are, and always will be, within this threshold. And thus human behavior is, and always will be, at some level non-deterministic.
That's not really the point. Whether or not we can tell what's going to happen has no bearing on the question of free will. If we are operating deterministically, but we can't predict the future, we still don't have free will. Ignorance != free will. Randomness != free will.
This is exactly the point I disagree with. What is the difference between an unpredictable system and a non-deterministic one? I agree that theoreticially the two cases are different but could an oberserver ever be sure of the difference?
How often has the weather made an important difference in someones mood, actions, thoughts on both a minor day-to-day level and in the grand events of history?
The difference is vital, fundamental, and pretty much logically necessary. Do you know Langton's Ant?
It is a system that is entirely deterministic, functioning according to two or three extremely simple rules. However, the results of the system, though always identical given the same starting conditions, cannot be predicted without actually following every step of the system.
This system is still incontrovertibly deterministic. The Ant has no free will. If the universe operates in this manner, we come to the same conclusion. Determinism doesn't care about what you think, or what an outside observer thinks. That's not what we're discussing.
For anyone claiming determinism exists when applied to the decisions of human beings: Is there any difference between a system being completely deterministic yet also completely unpredictable (because prediction would require an accuracy of measurement which would violate the uncertainty principle) and a system being non-deterministic?
I don't think there is any meaningful difference between the two.
Furthermore, if something is unpredictable not just because we lack the tools or computing resources to predict it but because it would indeed require measurements more accurate than is physically possible due to uncertainty this means it could never become predictable (barring, of course, a major overhaul of physics as we know it today).
I think it is extremely easy to show that human behavior is influenced by events which are, and always will be, within this threshold. And thus human behavior is, and always will be, at some level non-deterministic.
That's not really the point. Whether or not we can tell what's going to happen has no bearing on the question of free will. If we are operating deterministically, but we can't predict the future, we still don't have free will. Ignorance != free will. Randomness != free will.
This is exactly the point I disagree with. What is the difference between an unpredictable system and a non-deterministic one? I agree that theoreticially the two cases are different but could an oberserver ever be sure of the difference?
How often has the weather made an important difference in someones mood, actions, thoughts on both a minor day-to-day level and in the grand events of history?
The difference is vital, fundamental, and pretty much logically necessary. Do you know Langton's Ant?
It is a system that is entirely deterministic, functioning according to two or three extremely simple rules. However, the results of the system, though always identical given the same starting conditions, cannot be predicted without actually following every step of the system.
This system is still incontrovertibly deterministic. The Ant has no free will. If the universe operates in this manner, we come to the same conclusion. Determinism doesn't care about what you think, or what an outside observer thinks. That's not what we're discussing.
You missed my point again.
I am not arguing about whether the universe is "really" deterministic but that whether it is or not makes not the slightest bit of difference. From the point of view of anyone in it there is no difference between the universe being completely deterministic or mostly-deterministic with random bits thrown in.
Look at it like a scientist: The theory that the universe is 100% deterministic is not falsifiable given our current understanding of physical law.
It might be an interesting topic of philosophy but it is as much science as is Intelligent Design or "theories" about parallel dimensions.
As discussed earlier, acknowledging the deterministic nature of behaviour and decision would have an impact on policy and human relationships in general. So yes, it does matter.
As discussed earlier, acknowledging the deterministic nature of behaviour and decision would have an impact on policy and human relationships in general. So yes, it does matter.
It can only have an impact on policy if you accept that the deterministic nature of behavior is also predictable.
As discussed earlier, acknowledging the deterministic nature of behaviour and decision would have an impact on policy and human relationships in general. So yes, it does matter.
What impacts do you expect, and why does determinism lead to them?
As discussed earlier, acknowledging the deterministic nature of behaviour and decision would have an impact on policy and human relationships in general. So yes, it does matter.
It can only have an impact on policy if you accept that the deterministic nature of behavior is also predictable.
No, predictability has nothing to do with it. When you acknowledge that a human being's actions are the result of social conditioning, biological processes, etc etc, instead of attributing them to a nebulous immaterial entity called the "will," you can eliminate ideas like retributive justice and institutionalized vengeance. Maybe sort of. Ideally.
The interesting discussion is really the notion of responsibility and its importance in a deterministic framework, not whether or not that framework matters.
Deterministic wouldn't mean fully understandable and predictable.
Tell a father whose daughter was raped, that it was determined. Emotions are stronger than Reason.
I'll have much more to say on that topic and will elaborate on that later, but now I have to go play a few games of poker.
Jail has to be horrible, otherwise people won't want to go there. Like, ok, we already have a system that says there should be limits.
Sticking up liquor stores is not a poor decision if the result is just free food and psychological treatment. It has to be unpleasant to some degree. It's just a debate of how unpleasant it should be.
Jail has to be horrible, otherwise people won't want to go there. Like, ok, we already have a system that says there should be limits.
Sticking up liquor stores is not a poor decision if the result is just free food and psychological treatment. It has to be unpleasant to some degree. It's just a debate of how unpleasant it should be.
Yes, but this also means that prison is essentially unjust, and we use it simply for its social benefits. That being the case, why should the standard for conviction be "beyond a reasonable doubt"? Wouldn't the punishment system be an even more effective deterrent if the standard was "most likely"?
Deterministic wouldn't mean fully understandable and predictable.
Tell a father whose daughter was raped, that it was determined. Emotions are stronger than Reason.
I'll have much more to say on that topic and will elaborate on that later, but now I have to go play a few games of poker.
that's why i said "maybe sort of ideally"
Emotions are stronger than reason. That's why we want someone who harms us to be punished for punishment's sake. The father of a rape victim is usually the last person you want to be in charge of the rapist's fate, once he's been apprehended and put into whatever system of justice is being employed by their society.
Internalizing the idea of determinism has positive effects on compassion, I think, but I also think that humans are not geared towards fully embracing it, and I know that I would want - and have wanted - to kill a man who rapes a woman I know and love, for example.
Jail has to be horrible, otherwise people won't want to go there. Like, ok, we already have a system that says there should be limits.
Sticking up liquor stores is not a poor decision if the result is just free food and psychological treatment. It has to be unpleasant to some degree. It's just a debate of how unpleasant it should be.
Yes, but this also means that prison is essentially unjust, and we use it simply for its social benefits. That being the case, why should the standard for conviction be "beyond a reasonable doubt"? Wouldn't the punishment system be an even more effective deterrent if the standard was "most likely"?
No, because people need to feel relatively safe from the government. It becomes counter productive. But still an interesting non-sequitur.
Jail has to be horrible, otherwise people won't want to go there. Like, ok, we already have a system that says there should be limits.
Sticking up liquor stores is not a poor decision if the result is just free food and psychological treatment. It has to be unpleasant to some degree. It's just a debate of how unpleasant it should be.
Yes, but this also means that prison is essentially unjust, and we use it simply for its social benefits. That being the case, why should the standard for conviction be "beyond a reasonable doubt"? Wouldn't the punishment system be an even more effective deterrent if the standard was "most likely"?
No, because people need to feel relatively safe from the government. It becomes counter productive. But still an interesting non-sequitur.
It's uh, not a non sequitur. Also, your claim is quantitative (fear of government would do more harm than the reduced fear of criminals would alleviate), which means it needs some quantitative support. And even if vindicated, it misses the whole point. If sociologists could prove to you that a government that regularly executed innocent citizens could produce a better society, would you advocate that policy? It's like those utilitarians who forever find excuses why their theory doesn't really demand the objectionable practices it appears to. These excuses are often implausible and designed to prevent their theory from having any real impact. More importantly, the point of the question isn't what we advocate, it's why we advocate it. We don't think governments should execute innocents because it is appallingly unjust, pure and simple, and arguments over whether this is the best practice for utility are irrelevant.
So, I've tried to get the entirety of this thread digested.
Podly's definition of Free Will is pretty close to the position that I tend to advocate.
There are factors that influence every decision that I make, some of these factors are my past, some are what my body chemistry is currently, some are how I feel and what is currently occurring. However, in situation X I can choose either Yes or No. I may lean to No, but I could have chosen Yes. In fact, if you put me in situation X an infinite amount of times, I may choose No each time, and never choose Yes. However, I always possess the ability to choose Yes.
Now, because of the inherent practicality of many of the people here, I assume that the pertinent question is, why?
Having no Free Will, as has been addressed before removes people from moral agency. How is it legitimate to punish someone for performing action Y when there is no chance that he could have done anything other than action Y? Is it really his fault?
On the same notion, I also think that having no Free Will reduces the amount of responsibility that we have to take for our lives. Myself, I tend to be with Mr. Satre.
LoserForHireX on
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Having no Free Will, as has been addressed before removes people from moral agency. How is it legitimate to punish someone for performing action Y when there is no chance that he could have done anything other than action Y? Is it really his fault?
On the same notion, I also think that having no Free Will reduces the amount of responsibility that we have to take for our lives. Myself, I tend to be with Mr. Satre.
This is an interesting issue, and one that I think can be solved. It is legitimate to "punish" someone insofar as you a) deter other people from committing crimes and b) prevent him from committing further crimes, while still c) respecting his rights as a human being. Ideally, imprisonment would simply be removal from society and suspension of privileges such that it acts as a deterrent, although the power of that deterrent would need to be analyzed and quantified. Punishment just for the sake of it, though, makes little sense even without a deterministic framework, and certainly makes no sense within one, and I think that's a good thing.
Responsibility and accountability are tricky with deterministic thought, but remember that you still have the same goals and desires as ever: keeping people safe, making people happy, etc etc. If you shoot someone and then say "oh, well, it's not my fault because my genes made me do it," you're not immune to response; you're still going to be removed from a position where you can harm others, especially if your brain chemistry is such that you cannot be deterministically socialized to prevent further violent action.
As discussed earlier, acknowledging the deterministic nature of behaviour and decision would have an impact on policy and human relationships in general. So yes, it does matter.
It can only have an impact on policy if you accept that the deterministic nature of behavior is also predictable.
No, predictability has nothing to do with it. When you acknowledge that a human being's actions are the result of social conditioning, biological processes, etc etc, instead of attributing them to a nebulous immaterial entity called the "will," you can eliminate ideas like retributive justice and institutionalized vengeance. Maybe sort of. Ideally.
The interesting discussion is really the notion of responsibility and its importance in a deterministic framework, not whether or not that framework matters.
Predictability has everything to do with it. If how we base our moral systems on this framework isn't deterministic, the notion of responsibility, in terms of what is "fated" to happen or whatever, within it doesn't matter.
I don't think Riemannlives is arguing the fundamental nature of the universe is nondeterministic, he's just saying, as far as we're concerned about the future, it is.
Let's say someone walks up and shoots someone else. In this isolated incident, you could, on a galaxy-sized supercomputer (and probably using some math we don't know yet), recreate everything that happened. But, up until this guy shoots the other person, Heisenbergian uncertainty macroscopically states we don't know what the murderer is going to do, or, more importantly, we can't know. And this, in turn, means that, at best, we will only ever have approximations for the future, despite the fact our universe is probably entirely deterministic.
If this is true, which I believe it is, then that intrinsic degree of perceived randomness destroys just about any classical notion of fate. Even though it was fated to happen, we can't know until it has already happened. And isn't that the definition of nondeterminism? How can you say someone isn't responsible for their actions if their actions arise axiomatically unpredictably--if they arise with an unpredictable variability in, well "choice"?
I think that "free will" is an incoherent and nonsensical concept.
When you make a decision, when you exercise your supposed will, what factors influence your decision? Loren and other determinists claim that your will is predetermined, or in other words constrained by physical factors, and in fact those factors are what constitute your will. I don't really understand what the other side is claiming. If will is "free," what is it free of? What is it not constrained by? Your personality is a biological function, that's pretty clear; it can be altered completely by manipulation of the matter in your brain, or even just the hormones in your body. If you're "free" of the constraints of that, what is your motivation? How can you make a decision? What is the "self" that operates, somehow independent of material elements, to make decisions?
Right, that's what we're saying. If there is no self, there there is nothing to have or not have free will.
But I tend to seriously doubt most people who claim to truly comprehend the negation of self. Every thought you've had since you were about 3 - 6 months old has been in the context of a self-awareness and language, two things which don't really exist.
Rather I feel most people's concept of determinism is wankery that hasn't been thought out very well.
EDIT: Also, what you've written is essentially baseless speculation - there is no evidence that a society which mets out ever harsher punishments to its criminals is by any account "happier".
Well, yeah, it was presented as such. Every other argument for or against various forms of justice here have been baseless speculation.
I don't think there's any reasonable means or metric by which that one can claim that it exists "moreso than happiness or anger" as Yar has claimed though.
Moreso because it is inextricably tied to the concept of self, which is pretty damn essential to almost anything we're capable of discussing in language, whereas happiness and anger are just emotions we could fairly easily imagine life without.
Van Inwagen calls this "Metaphysical Freedom," in which we cannot find the essence of free will, but it seems that no one will truly deny that they are free in their actions. I chose my school because I wanted to go there, I chose pancakes and not bacon and eggs this morning because I just wanted pancakes.
The pancakes and school examples you give are the only notions of free will that can have any relevant meaning. All other notions of free will such as those which require causeless action or the denial of self are set up for failure to begin with as they operate in a universe where free will is irrelevant as a concept.
You say that the "I" is quite real, because "you are it." I think you are failing to recognize that, in your scenario, the self too arises from the brain's mechanical properties creating an environment in which to act. If we are determined to act in a certain way, there is no self, there is no "subject." There is just the human animal, which is just a fancy vehicle to carry genes. (Which, itself, is just a beautiful result of atoms moving in a particular way.) You cannot believe the self is anything other than a virtual phenomena resulting from reflection if you are a biological determinist.
Yes, this. Lime it. These free will/determinism discussions always suffer from this bogus notion where someone assumes that they exist, because, you know, they just intuitively know they exist, but deny free will even though it only exists for the very same reason.
I'll take Loren's requirement that we define free will one further, and require than anyone making any claim whatsoever about having or not having must first define the subject which has or doesn't have - what is the self that does not have free will?
We went down this road for like 3000 posts one time. During that, we revealed _J_ as an intellectual fraud, but also came to the conclusion that "self" and "free will" ultimately have the same definition, whatever it may be and regardless of whether you think they are or aren't.
As discussed earlier, acknowledging the deterministic nature of behaviour and decision would have an impact on policy and human relationships in general. So yes, it does matter.
You only think it affects those things because you fail to fully comprehend it.
I find it very strange that some people seem to think that free will and determinism are mutally exclusive. They are not.
I have a choice, say to pick a red pill or a blue pill. I will make the choice, it is mine to make. Now, I choose the one I am because my brain is recieving certain stimuli, it calculates some stuff, and I make a decision. I'd bet if you had complete knowledge of how the brain was set up, this decision would be entirely predictable*. But, of course, there is no way that you can know exactly how something as complicated as a human brain works to such an exact extent.
Determinism and free will are fine and seperate, so long as the free choice is not totally predictable. I choose to eat a burger, or to shoot someone. Whether I was "destined" or predetermined to do these things is irrelevant, so long as nobody was able to completely predict my actions.
*Now, I do think that this would be totally predictable. Some people may make an argument of "quantum consciousness" or some such. If you involve quantum stuff, then sure, it can be become fundamentally unpredictable. There is no real evidence for or against this, but I personally doubt it plays much of a role.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
I find it very strange that some people seem to think that free will and determinism are mutally exclusive. They are not.
Compatibilism, motherfuckers.
You don't always need a supercomputer to predict people's choices. For instance, if someone offered me the choice between a free month long vacation in Hawaii and having my eyes poked out with sharp sticks, then you all could predict that I would choose the vacation. Does that mean that I didn't, in fact, make the choice at all?
Go read Breakfast of Champions. The whole "You are the only real person, everyone else is a robot" idea is dangerous m'kay?
This is NOT the point of the thread. Not even close.
Dennett is awesome.
For me I'd say free will is the freedom from the tyranny of the environment. Our decisions are not completely constrained by factors that are external to our own brains. So you lack free will in a situation in which your mental state can have no effect on the decision you make. So when the doctor hits your knee and your leg kicks (the knee jerk reflex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patellar_reflex) you have no choice in the matter. In that case you have no free will. We can't have free will in the sense of being free from causality; we can't make decisions that are independent of what went before us; but we can have free will in the sense that our brains do some non-trivial amount of the processing that determines our actions.
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
I find it very strange that some people seem to think that free will and determinism are mutally exclusive. They are not.
Compatibilism, motherfuckers.
You don't always need a supercomputer to predict people's choices. For instance, if someone offered me the choice between a free month long vacation in Hawaii and having my eyes poked out with sharp sticks, then you all could predict that I would choose the vacation. Does that mean that I didn't, in fact, make the choice at all?
This is basically the argument of Dennett, one of this best philosopher's on Free Will I've read. Basically, Dennett is a materialist par excellence, and says that the brain is the agent of control - the deterministic agent of choice. Dennett tries to emphasize control over choice as the important factor in free will. We CONTROL our agency as biological subjects by responding to our environment and mapping out the best course of action. This, in turn, further conditions us to behave in a behaviorist way, but we still have CONTROL over our actions.
You say that the "I" is quite real, because "you are it." I think you are failing to recognize that, in your scenario, the self too arises from the brain's mechanical properties creating an environment in which to act. If we are determined to act in a certain way, there is no self, there is no "subject." There is just the human animal, which is just a fancy vehicle to carry genes. (Which, itself, is just a beautiful result of atoms moving in a particular way.) You cannot believe the self is anything other than a virtual phenomena resulting from reflection if you are a biological determinist.
Which is, indeed, more or less what I believe to be true.
The practical reality of that is virtually nil for me, though it does have - as I have said before - some useful guiding ideas when we go to implement policy that will affect other peoples lives, or ask the question "why do people act like that?"
I think that this is a tree/forest problem, but there is one immediate problem with this situation, which has been brought up in this very thread before for a different reason:
If you are simply a hollow, formal creation resulting from brain process, you cannot be held accountable for your crimes you commit, because you are not an entity. Rather, you are not a single entity, but the result of previous, physical interactions of processes which are not "your own."
You say that the "I" is quite real, because "you are it." I think you are failing to recognize that, in your scenario, the self too arises from the brain's mechanical properties creating an environment in which to act. If we are determined to act in a certain way, there is no self, there is no "subject." There is just the human animal, which is just a fancy vehicle to carry genes. (Which, itself, is just a beautiful result of atoms moving in a particular way.) You cannot believe the self is anything other than a virtual phenomena resulting from reflection if you are a biological determinist.
Which is, indeed, more or less what I believe to be true.
The practical reality of that is virtually nil for me, though it does have - as I have said before - some useful guiding ideas when we go to implement policy that will affect other peoples lives, or ask the question "why do people act like that?"
I think that this is a tree/forest problem, but there is one immediate problem with this situation, which has been brought up in this very thread before for a different reason:
If you are simply a hollow, formal creation resulting from brain process, you cannot be held accountable for your crimes you commit, because you are not an entity. Rather, you are not a single entity, but the result of previous, physical interactions of processes which are not "your own."
Why is the inability to be held accountable for your actions a problem? All of the justifications for punishment still hold, the only difference is that some of them become more honest.
I find it very strange that some people seem to think that free will and determinism are mutally exclusive. They are not.
Compatibilism, motherfuckers.
You don't always need a supercomputer to predict people's choices. For instance, if someone offered me the choice between a free month long vacation in Hawaii and having my eyes poked out with sharp sticks, then you all could predict that I would choose the vacation. Does that mean that I didn't, in fact, make the choice at all?
It means that you had very little choice. Still some, if there was a non-zero chance that you might choose having your eyes poked out, but really it's so close to no choice as makes no difference and it would be fairly accurate to say you were forced to go on vacation to Hawaii.
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
You say that the "I" is quite real, because "you are it." I think you are failing to recognize that, in your scenario, the self too arises from the brain's mechanical properties creating an environment in which to act. If we are determined to act in a certain way, there is no self, there is no "subject." There is just the human animal, which is just a fancy vehicle to carry genes. (Which, itself, is just a beautiful result of atoms moving in a particular way.) You cannot believe the self is anything other than a virtual phenomena resulting from reflection if you are a biological determinist.
Which is, indeed, more or less what I believe to be true.
The practical reality of that is virtually nil for me, though it does have - as I have said before - some useful guiding ideas when we go to implement policy that will affect other peoples lives, or ask the question "why do people act like that?"
I think that this is a tree/forest problem, but there is one immediate problem with this situation, which has been brought up in this very thread before for a different reason:
If you are simply a hollow, formal creation resulting from brain process, you cannot be held accountable for your crimes you commit, because you are not an entity. Rather, you are not a single entity, but the result of previous, physical interactions of processes which are not "your own."
Why is the inability to be held accountable for your actions a problem? All of the justifications for punishment still hold, the only difference is that some of them become more honest.
Because there is no self. If you are only you in that instant, and every other bond is just a formal illusion, then you are not punishing the criminal. It would be like punishing my father for a crime I committed.
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Basically, there's a pretty decent argument that it's the brain's justification organ or somesuch.
While I think it is necessary to demarcate the notion of the subject/agent, if not let me know and we can stop.
You say that the "I" is quite real, because "you are it." I think you are failing to recognize that, in your scenario, the self too arises from the brain's mechanical properties creating an environment in which to act. If we are determined to act in a certain way, there is no self, there is no "subject." There is just the human animal, which is just a fancy vehicle to carry genes. (Which, itself, is just a beautiful result of atoms moving in a particular way.) You cannot believe the self is anything other than a virtual phenomena resulting from reflection if you are a biological determinist.
The interface of consciousness and self with will is an interesting one, and important to the discussion, so here's how I see it:
the I, the awareness of self and of being, is something I can't explain. As a materialist, I am sure that consciousness is a material process, but I don't understand it. However, personality, taste, etc, all the elements of identity, can be explained and deterministically charted by the material function of the brain. Consciousness itself, then, seems to be simply an observer riding along in the deterministic vehicle of the identity. I don't think they're actually separate; in fact, they are so closely linked that we often think the consciousness has a controlling power.
The practical reality of that is virtually nil for me, though it does have - as I have said before - some useful guiding ideas when we go to implement policy that will affect other peoples lives, or ask the question "why do people act like that?"
It ties back to the thing I agreed with that Yar said - since free will is an illusion that you are apart of, within the illusion you most definitely have it.
It's what makes us, 'us'. What 'decisions' we make are the net result of everything that has come before, of everyone we've interacted with. Aren't we neat machines.
Quite frankly, I don't see what it changes. Your example, well... There are a lot of people who don't feel strongly about determinism, that believe the criminal rehabilitation system should live up to it's damn name. I don't know, mostly religious folks to be honest. I was raised a quaker, and they were all over that shit, and I'm pretty sure they don't believe in determinism, almost totally sure.
Wanting better jails just take compassion. If your actions are dictated by determinism, you should seek to create a good an environment as possible for all the little machines to live in, particularly those ones you care about. How's that diffrent from someone who's actions aren't influenced by having acknowledged determinism?
I think Loren would agree it's a beautiful process, he's just using language in a way to make his point more strongly.
Your point about what constitutes "you" is important though; free will would mean being free of the identity that has been constructed by your life, which would just make you insane and chaotic.
and ultimately determinists argue that nothing changes when you acknowledge determinism, except that you get rid of whatever illusions accompany the idea of free will and free agency, ideas like vengeful retribution as justice being one of them.
Sorry, most of the illustrative analogies I know on this subject are typically along the line of the one in the thread title.
Personally, I feel like it's actually refreshing, in a kind of empty Zen way. There's no reason for hatred of individuals when the causes are outside of the perpetrator. Ever since I got to where I've been, mentally, for the past year or so, almost all of the anger I ever had is just gone. I mostly just feel sad, hopeful, and happy these days.
It depends on the person and ideology being compared, I guess. I have a feeling I wasn't making a lot of sense to a lot of people here in my recent religion thread, but you might consider reading a little of what I said there. I have to go to bed soon though, so I can't expound too much right now, sorry.
A couple of things follow from this.
1)It is impossible to predict the outcome of a decision with certainty (free will requires indeterminism).
2) Freedom is a scale; actions are more or less free, depending on how likely they were. This tracks with our commonsense understanding of coercion - a man with a gun to his head is less free because he is overwhelmingly likely to do whatever the guy with the gun says.
3) It is possible to be deceived about how free one is. How likely you think it is that we are deceived depends on your position on the nature of minds. Physicalists have to believe we are deceived or accept some special physics for the brain, which is highly implausible.
4) A person who is not free is not morally accountable for his actions. Moral responsibility requires that a person was free to do otherwise. Under the assumption of freedom, a person who jumps off a roof onto someone is different from a person who falls off a roof onto someone. On a deterministic account, in both scenarios the man on the roof was equally helpless to stop his fall.
*The subset of the world which informs the deliberation over actions occurring in the mind; for example, the flavors of ice cream available to someone deciding what to order.
Why? I would suggest it's much more implausible that there is some immaterial, irreducible force outside of the material realm that can nevertheless influence it and be influenced by it, yet reside apparently outside of the realm of causality as well.
The physics doesn't have to be "special," either.
I was saying special physics for the brain is highly implausible - hence, indeterminism is highly implausible to a physicalist. Whether the physics would have to be special for decisions to occur in a brain is debatable - I've argued against it before - but most physicalists assume that this is the case, so I see no reason to worry about it.
I don't think there is any meaningful difference between the two.
Furthermore, if something is unpredictable not just because we lack the tools or computing resources to predict it but because it would indeed require measurements more accurate than is physically possible due to uncertainty this means it could never become predictable (barring, of course, a major overhaul of physics as we know it today).
I think it is extremely easy to show that human behavior is influenced by events which are, and always will be, within this threshold. And thus human behavior is, and always will be, at some level non-deterministic.
Ahhh, that makes much more sense then, my bad. Carry on.
I think you are conflating determinism with Laplace's Demon, as Richy did in my last thread, and (I am lazy) I may have included in my OP for this thread.
That's not really the point. Whether or not we can tell what's going to happen has no bearing on the question of free will. If we are operating deterministically, but we can't predict the future, we still don't have free will. Ignorance != free will. Randomness != free will.
This is exactly the point I disagree with. What is the difference between an unpredictable system and a non-deterministic one? I agree that theoreticially the two cases are different but could an oberserver ever be sure of the difference?
How often has the weather made an important difference in someones mood, actions, thoughts on both a minor day-to-day level and in the grand events of history?
The difference is vital, fundamental, and pretty much logically necessary. Do you know Langton's Ant?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langton's_ant
It is a system that is entirely deterministic, functioning according to two or three extremely simple rules. However, the results of the system, though always identical given the same starting conditions, cannot be predicted without actually following every step of the system.
This system is still incontrovertibly deterministic. The Ant has no free will. If the universe operates in this manner, we come to the same conclusion. Determinism doesn't care about what you think, or what an outside observer thinks. That's not what we're discussing.
You missed my point again.
I am not arguing about whether the universe is "really" deterministic but that whether it is or not makes not the slightest bit of difference. From the point of view of anyone in it there is no difference between the universe being completely deterministic or mostly-deterministic with random bits thrown in.
Look at it like a scientist: The theory that the universe is 100% deterministic is not falsifiable given our current understanding of physical law.
It might be an interesting topic of philosophy but it is as much science as is Intelligent Design or "theories" about parallel dimensions.
It can only have an impact on policy if you accept that the deterministic nature of behavior is also predictable.
What impacts do you expect, and why does determinism lead to them?
No, predictability has nothing to do with it. When you acknowledge that a human being's actions are the result of social conditioning, biological processes, etc etc, instead of attributing them to a nebulous immaterial entity called the "will," you can eliminate ideas like retributive justice and institutionalized vengeance. Maybe sort of. Ideally.
The interesting discussion is really the notion of responsibility and its importance in a deterministic framework, not whether or not that framework matters.
Tell a father whose daughter was raped, that it was determined. Emotions are stronger than Reason.
I'll have much more to say on that topic and will elaborate on that later, but now I have to go play a few games of poker.
Jail has to be horrible, otherwise people won't want to go there. Like, ok, we already have a system that says there should be limits.
Sticking up liquor stores is not a poor decision if the result is just free food and psychological treatment. It has to be unpleasant to some degree. It's just a debate of how unpleasant it should be.
It's like med school for criminals.
EDIT: NOT THAT I WANT TO MAKE THIS A DISCUSSION ABOUT THE PROS AND CONS OF US JAIL SYSTEM WHICH WOULD BE A TOTALLY DIFFERENT THREAD.
So I'll add:
As much as determinism is certain, WE HAVE TO BLAME PEOPLE FOR WHAT THEY DID.
Because let's face it, that's just how we roll.
Yes, but this also means that prison is essentially unjust, and we use it simply for its social benefits. That being the case, why should the standard for conviction be "beyond a reasonable doubt"? Wouldn't the punishment system be an even more effective deterrent if the standard was "most likely"?
that's why i said "maybe sort of ideally"
Emotions are stronger than reason. That's why we want someone who harms us to be punished for punishment's sake. The father of a rape victim is usually the last person you want to be in charge of the rapist's fate, once he's been apprehended and put into whatever system of justice is being employed by their society.
Internalizing the idea of determinism has positive effects on compassion, I think, but I also think that humans are not geared towards fully embracing it, and I know that I would want - and have wanted - to kill a man who rapes a woman I know and love, for example.
No, because people need to feel relatively safe from the government. It becomes counter productive. But still an interesting non-sequitur.
It's uh, not a non sequitur. Also, your claim is quantitative (fear of government would do more harm than the reduced fear of criminals would alleviate), which means it needs some quantitative support. And even if vindicated, it misses the whole point. If sociologists could prove to you that a government that regularly executed innocent citizens could produce a better society, would you advocate that policy? It's like those utilitarians who forever find excuses why their theory doesn't really demand the objectionable practices it appears to. These excuses are often implausible and designed to prevent their theory from having any real impact. More importantly, the point of the question isn't what we advocate, it's why we advocate it. We don't think governments should execute innocents because it is appallingly unjust, pure and simple, and arguments over whether this is the best practice for utility are irrelevant.
Podly's definition of Free Will is pretty close to the position that I tend to advocate.
There are factors that influence every decision that I make, some of these factors are my past, some are what my body chemistry is currently, some are how I feel and what is currently occurring. However, in situation X I can choose either Yes or No. I may lean to No, but I could have chosen Yes. In fact, if you put me in situation X an infinite amount of times, I may choose No each time, and never choose Yes. However, I always possess the ability to choose Yes.
Now, because of the inherent practicality of many of the people here, I assume that the pertinent question is, why?
Having no Free Will, as has been addressed before removes people from moral agency. How is it legitimate to punish someone for performing action Y when there is no chance that he could have done anything other than action Y? Is it really his fault?
On the same notion, I also think that having no Free Will reduces the amount of responsibility that we have to take for our lives. Myself, I tend to be with Mr. Satre.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
This is an interesting issue, and one that I think can be solved. It is legitimate to "punish" someone insofar as you a) deter other people from committing crimes and b) prevent him from committing further crimes, while still c) respecting his rights as a human being. Ideally, imprisonment would simply be removal from society and suspension of privileges such that it acts as a deterrent, although the power of that deterrent would need to be analyzed and quantified. Punishment just for the sake of it, though, makes little sense even without a deterministic framework, and certainly makes no sense within one, and I think that's a good thing.
Responsibility and accountability are tricky with deterministic thought, but remember that you still have the same goals and desires as ever: keeping people safe, making people happy, etc etc. If you shoot someone and then say "oh, well, it's not my fault because my genes made me do it," you're not immune to response; you're still going to be removed from a position where you can harm others, especially if your brain chemistry is such that you cannot be deterministically socialized to prevent further violent action.
Predictability has everything to do with it. If how we base our moral systems on this framework isn't deterministic, the notion of responsibility, in terms of what is "fated" to happen or whatever, within it doesn't matter.
I don't think Riemannlives is arguing the fundamental nature of the universe is nondeterministic, he's just saying, as far as we're concerned about the future, it is.
Let's say someone walks up and shoots someone else. In this isolated incident, you could, on a galaxy-sized supercomputer (and probably using some math we don't know yet), recreate everything that happened. But, up until this guy shoots the other person, Heisenbergian uncertainty macroscopically states we don't know what the murderer is going to do, or, more importantly, we can't know. And this, in turn, means that, at best, we will only ever have approximations for the future, despite the fact our universe is probably entirely deterministic.
If this is true, which I believe it is, then that intrinsic degree of perceived randomness destroys just about any classical notion of fate. Even though it was fated to happen, we can't know until it has already happened. And isn't that the definition of nondeterminism? How can you say someone isn't responsible for their actions if their actions arise axiomatically unpredictably--if they arise with an unpredictable variability in, well "choice"?
But I tend to seriously doubt most people who claim to truly comprehend the negation of self. Every thought you've had since you were about 3 - 6 months old has been in the context of a self-awareness and language, two things which don't really exist.
Rather I feel most people's concept of determinism is wankery that hasn't been thought out very well.
Well, yeah, it was presented as such. Every other argument for or against various forms of justice here have been baseless speculation.
Moreso because it is inextricably tied to the concept of self, which is pretty damn essential to almost anything we're capable of discussing in language, whereas happiness and anger are just emotions we could fairly easily imagine life without.
The pancakes and school examples you give are the only notions of free will that can have any relevant meaning. All other notions of free will such as those which require causeless action or the denial of self are set up for failure to begin with as they operate in a universe where free will is irrelevant as a concept.
Yes, this. Lime it. These free will/determinism discussions always suffer from this bogus notion where someone assumes that they exist, because, you know, they just intuitively know they exist, but deny free will even though it only exists for the very same reason.
I'll take Loren's requirement that we define free will one further, and require than anyone making any claim whatsoever about having or not having must first define the subject which has or doesn't have - what is the self that does not have free will?
We went down this road for like 3000 posts one time. During that, we revealed _J_ as an intellectual fraud, but also came to the conclusion that "self" and "free will" ultimately have the same definition, whatever it may be and regardless of whether you think they are or aren't.
fix'd - determinism is a fancy way of saying "cause and effect." It changes nothing, including anything regarding vengeance or justice.
You only think it affects those things because you fail to fully comprehend it.
I have a choice, say to pick a red pill or a blue pill. I will make the choice, it is mine to make. Now, I choose the one I am because my brain is recieving certain stimuli, it calculates some stuff, and I make a decision. I'd bet if you had complete knowledge of how the brain was set up, this decision would be entirely predictable*. But, of course, there is no way that you can know exactly how something as complicated as a human brain works to such an exact extent.
Determinism and free will are fine and seperate, so long as the free choice is not totally predictable. I choose to eat a burger, or to shoot someone. Whether I was "destined" or predetermined to do these things is irrelevant, so long as nobody was able to completely predict my actions.
*Now, I do think that this would be totally predictable. Some people may make an argument of "quantum consciousness" or some such. If you involve quantum stuff, then sure, it can be become fundamentally unpredictable. There is no real evidence for or against this, but I personally doubt it plays much of a role.
Compatibilism, motherfuckers.
You don't always need a supercomputer to predict people's choices. For instance, if someone offered me the choice between a free month long vacation in Hawaii and having my eyes poked out with sharp sticks, then you all could predict that I would choose the vacation. Does that mean that I didn't, in fact, make the choice at all?
This is NOT the point of the thread. Not even close.
Dennett is awesome.
For me I'd say free will is the freedom from the tyranny of the environment. Our decisions are not completely constrained by factors that are external to our own brains. So you lack free will in a situation in which your mental state can have no effect on the decision you make. So when the doctor hits your knee and your leg kicks (the knee jerk reflex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patellar_reflex) you have no choice in the matter. In that case you have no free will. We can't have free will in the sense of being free from causality; we can't make decisions that are independent of what went before us; but we can have free will in the sense that our brains do some non-trivial amount of the processing that determines our actions.
This is basically the argument of Dennett, one of this best philosopher's on Free Will I've read. Basically, Dennett is a materialist par excellence, and says that the brain is the agent of control - the deterministic agent of choice. Dennett tries to emphasize control over choice as the important factor in free will. We CONTROL our agency as biological subjects by responding to our environment and mapping out the best course of action. This, in turn, further conditions us to behave in a behaviorist way, but we still have CONTROL over our actions.
I think that this is a tree/forest problem, but there is one immediate problem with this situation, which has been brought up in this very thread before for a different reason:
If you are simply a hollow, formal creation resulting from brain process, you cannot be held accountable for your crimes you commit, because you are not an entity. Rather, you are not a single entity, but the result of previous, physical interactions of processes which are not "your own."
Why is the inability to be held accountable for your actions a problem? All of the justifications for punishment still hold, the only difference is that some of them become more honest.
It means that you had very little choice. Still some, if there was a non-zero chance that you might choose having your eyes poked out, but really it's so close to no choice as makes no difference and it would be fairly accurate to say you were forced to go on vacation to Hawaii.
Because there is no self. If you are only you in that instant, and every other bond is just a formal illusion, then you are not punishing the criminal. It would be like punishing my father for a crime I committed.