DOOR 18

This is a new improved version of DOOR 17 just to cater for some objections I have had ...I hope this one is more accurate...


Your name is Bob .
Imagine a room with 20 doors in it you go in and deliberate this way and that which door to walk through after an hour you walk through door 18 and walk up some stairs on the roof of the room . The room has a glass ceiling so you can look down on the room below . You see that behind every door was a staircase but on the staircase behind DOOR 18 are written the words "Bob's choice" and it's not on the other staircases. Door 18 was the only choice you were ever going to make or could make , even though you deliberated over it and made an aware choice.I felt like you were choosing at the time but objectively you were programmed for door 18. Your brain was destined to choose door 18 just like any other mechanised physical process. Door 8 seemed like a real possibility at the time but it could never have been. Door 8 is a choice that someone else may make but not you.

The worm however does not stay in the room at all and does not deliberate or reason or show self awareness . It simply wriggles up the stairs behind door 6 without even realising that all the other doors are not possible . On the stairs behind door 6 is written "worms choice" and nowhere else. Interestingly to an alien observer there would be little difference between the worm and you apart from the amount of time you spent in the room compared to the worm. Take away the subjective experience of awareness and decison making and you are left with similar determined actions. Both you and the worm will always choose door 18 and 6 , it just takes you a bit longer.

The fact that you feel that door 8 is a real possibility does not make it so. The fact that you feel you are choosing door 18 and not door 8 does not make it so as long as door 8 remains a choice you can only make if you were someone else. Subjectively you feel more free than the worm and you are also more able to make better choices. You are a more efficient entity at choosing just as a cat is more efficient than a worm at choosing. But for you the cat and the worm the door 18 model always applies , it has to unless you move into a two door model where your name (BoB) is written on two staircases and not one (real free will).

(BTW- Believing in free will as I do, I don't believe in this model , but I do see it as the only logical model for a compatabilist /determinist)

Originally posted by knightmeister
This is a new improved version of DOOR 17 just to cater for some objections I have had ...I hope this one is more accurate...


Your name is Bob .
Imagine a room with 20 doors in it you go in and deliberate this way and that which door to walk through after an hour you walk through door 18 and walk up some stairs on the roof of the room . The room ...[text shortened]... this model , but I do see it as the only logical model for a compatabilist /determinist)

How is any of this relevant to compatibilism?

Originally posted by bbarr
How is any of this relevant to compatibilism?

....because it shows how the worm's choices and our choices are fundamentally the same under determinism , the only difference being that the worm has no subjective experience of choice , he doesn't take as long as we do and he doesn't walk as many staircases as we do over his life. Apart from that our choice is not essentially any more free from determinism than his.

Originally posted by knightmeister
....because it shows how the worm's choices and our choices are fundamentally the same under determinism , the only difference being that the worm has no subjective experience of choice , he doesn't take as long as we do and he doesn't walk as many staircases as we do over his life. Apart from that our choice is not essentially any more free from determinism than his.

Since, according to compatibilist acccounts of choice, worms can't choose, it shows no such thing.

Originally posted by bbarr
Since, according to compatibilist acccounts of choice, worms can't choose, it shows no such thing.

All biological entites with a nervous system make selections based on stimuli.

Have you never seen a worm wriggle away from your hand in avoidance of danger? Hvae you never seen it feel around with it's head and then seemingly select a course of movement. Is that not a choice based on the programming of the worms nervous system?

You might argue that this is a response rather than choice because the worm has no option but to react , but in a deterministic world a man has no option but to react in a certain way either . The fact that deliberations form part of his reaction does not afford him any more objective alternatives than the worm.

In what sense is a man less at the mercy of how his nervous system dictates his reactions than the worm? Both entities are dictated to by their nervous systems. The worm reacts , we react , just different responses to stimuli. All determined by physical laws.

Now if we could say that we could do something a worm might never dream about , ie make real objective choices between A and B in the knowledge that both are actually possible and not always be subject to the dictates of our nervous system then that WOULD be something a worm couldn't do.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Have you never seen a worm wriggle away from your hand in avoidance of danger? Is that not a choice based on the programming of the worms nervous system?

You might argue that this is a response rather than choice because the worm has no option but to react , but in a deterministic world a man has no option but to react in a certain way either . The ...[text shortened]... e worm reacts , we react , just different responses to stimuli. All determined by physical laws

i dont like this 18 door world. every time i try to fool the creator, and do something unexpected, it was predetermined. its like trying to dodge your reflection in the mirror.

Originally posted by bbarr
Since, according to compatibilist acccounts of choice, worms can't choose, it shows no such thing.

Please define 'choose' as I suspect that knightmeister is using it in a very different way from you.
This is what I think you both mean:
bbar:
choose: to deliberate consciously which choice to make when a conscious entity is presented with alternatives.
knightmiester:
choose: to make a choice whether consciously or programatically when an entity is presented with alternatives.
If I am right and the definitions are different can we possibly all agree on new words for the two cases or a word with a special mark so that we don't get confused.

Originally posted by knightmeister
....because it shows how the worm's choices and our choices are fundamentally the same under determinism , the only difference being that the worm has no subjective experience of choice , he doesn't take as long as we do and he doesn't walk as many staircases as we do over his life. Apart from that our choice is not essentially any more free from determinism than his.

I believe you are describing "actualism", literally the thing which happens is the only thing which could happen.

This is a failure of logic. Really, the thing which did happen, is the only thing which did happen, but we cannot be sure it is the only thing which could happen.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
I believe you are describing "actualism", literally the thing which happens is the only thing which could happen.

This is a failure of logic. Really, the thing which did happen, is the only thing which did happen, but we cannot be sure it is the only thing which could happen.

This is a failure of logic. Really, the thing which did happen, is the only thing which did happen, but we cannot be sure it is the only thing which could happen. SCOTTY

I agree , we cannot be sure but that is not what the model is saying is it? The model is a picture of determinism at work , and in determinism only one thing can happen so the name BOB on one staircase only is quite appropriate. Note that BOB was written on the staircase before he got into the room.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Please define 'choose' as I suspect that knightmeister is using it in a very different way from you.
This is what I think you both mean:
bbar:
choose: to deliberate consciously which choice to make when a conscious entity is presented with alternatives.
knightmiester:
choose: to make a choice whether consciously or programatically when an entity is ...[text shortened]... e on new words for the two cases or a word with a special mark so that we don't get confused.

For me a choice is more real if it is more than just a mental process. In barrs model the choice happens internally as a subjective experience of selecting from alternatives. The alternatives are , however , real alternatives because objectively in determinism there can be no such thing as a real objective alternative.

In my model however , the alternatives are not just mental constructs that are deliberated over internally and subjectively they are also objectively and externally real and possible alternatives that can be potentially be played out in the real world of things.

My model is more of a real choice because there really is more than one staircase to be climbed . This is why I say mine is a real choice as opposed to just a mental game at choosing.

Originally posted by EcstremeVenom
i dont like this 18 door world. every time i try to fool the creator, and do something unexpected, it was predetermined. its like trying to dodge your reflection in the mirror.

Why would it have to be predetermined ?

Originally posted by knightmeister
Why would it have to be predetermined ?

because every choice i make is the only choice possible and god knew that 🙁, he knew i would make this post too.

Originally posted by EcstremeVenom
because every choice i make is the only choice possible and god knew that 🙁, he knew i would make this post too.

And how does he know that?

Originally posted by knightmeister
All biological entites with a nervous system make selections based on stimuli.

Have you never seen a worm wriggle away from your hand in avoidance of danger? Hvae you never seen it feel around with it's head and then seemingly select a course of movement. Is that not a choice based on the programming of the worms nervous system?

You might argu ...[text shortened]... subject to the dictates of our nervous system then that WOULD be something a worm couldn't do.

I'm talking about choices, not selections. I've already explained to you that on the compatibilist account, we choose when we form intentions on the basis of what we take our reasons to be, resulting from deliberation wherein we consider various courses of action. Worms can't do this, so worms can't choose.

This account of choices has absolutely nothing to do with determinism (and is, in fact, compatible with libertarianism), and you have yet to present any reason to think that this account is in error (other than your consistent, screeching refrain: "But it's not libertarianism! Boo-hoo!" ). The reason that nobody here who knows what they're talking about takes you seriously is because you are incapable of presenting any argument against compatibilism that doesn't simply assume at the outset that libertarianism must be true. Our collective disgust at your incompetence is only slightly tempered by our collective pity that you seem uneducable. I, for one, sincerely hope that you will change course, prove us wrong, and present an argument in one of these threads that doesn't beg the question. I'm waiting...

Originally posted by knightmeister
And how does he know that?

i think that if everything we do is the only way it could have happened, then god would probably know everything