Have I solved the problem of compatibilism?

Question

Many people are determinists: they believe that everything, since the Big Bang, has been absolutely determined by causality (cause and effect) and, therefore, free will is impossible because our choices are determined already by heredity, experience, education, morality, circumstances and other causal factors. I'm a compatibilist: I believe in causality too but also believe free will is compatible with, but limited by, determinism. I'll explain why and how. YOU decide if I've explained free will.

From his high-rise Miami condo, an aspiring photographer sees dark clouds gathering in the distance. He remembers that a thunderstorm had been forecast for the evening. He sets up his camera and tripod on the balcony, checks the battery in his remote control, and waits for lightning.

A young couple have 10% of their paychecks automatically deposited into a savings account for their baby son’s college fund.

A family stares out their car windows at the rubble that was once their seaside neighborhood. They arrive at their home, which is still standing and undamaged because they made sure (at great expense) it was
constructed to be hurricane-proof.

A little boy hears his brother coming down the stairs and hides behind a door, ready to jump out and shout, "Boo!”.

What do these 4 scenarios have in common? They all involve plans for the future: whether that be in 5 seconds or 18 years or even some unknown, indefinite, period. We all routinely make plans and execute them. Most of the time, our plans succeed. Sometimes they don’t. We often have to adjust our plans to accommodate new circumstances. If our plans involve competition, there’s greater risk of failure because our competitor(s) might out-maneuver us with a better plan.

We’re so inured to plans and planning that we take them for granted. It might well be that almost everything we do involves at least a little foresight; even if we don't normally realize it. What are plans, really? Plans are goal-oriented schemes. We consider the variables involved and extrapolate cause and effect into the future to predict the best strategies to achieve our goals. We can even pursue multiple goals and plans simultaneously. This uniquely human skill is hard wired into all our brains.

The human brain is a mass of neurons and synapses passing electrochemical signals around. It’s the most complex object we know of. Even so, it’s still a natural object and, thus, subject to the laws of nature: not the least of which is causality. Our brains, like everything else, are subject to cause and effect. But we understand causaltiy. Causality is a cascading chain reaction of events. A cause creates an effect, so an effect becomes a cause when it, in turn, affects something else.

One of the causal effects of the human brain is imagination; perhaps the most amazing skill we possess. Creativity is a hallmark of human intelligence because it’s a form of imagination. Planning is also a form of imagination: we imagine future goals and the scenarios to achieve them. Imagination is, by nature, a temporal skill – we don’t imagine what’s actually happening right now – we imagine what could happen, later. (For the purposes of this essay, I’m separating imagination from fantasy, so I won’t discuss imagining the past.) But what about the decisions we make in the present? Aren’t they governed by causality . . . by deterministic factors?

Absolutely. Of course. Everything is determined by causality.

Including our imaginations. Because creativity and planning are causal effects of the brain, they serve a critical role – along with heredity, experience, circumstances, and other causal effects – in determining our decisions.

What is the effect of imagination on our decisions? The effect of imagination, particularly of planning, is to give us a temporal advantage over causality. Our imaginations (figuratively) take us where causality can’t go: the future. When we go to the future, we take our understanding of causality with us and make our best estimate of what we can expect in the future. In other words, we plan. By planning, we will (hopefully) be prepared for causality when it arrives. Plans, in a mental feedback loop, are mixed in with all the other causal factors that determine our decisions; then they exert a unique effect on our lives . . . they select potential futures – and, thus, guide the "causal paths" we take through life. The causal effect of imagination is, literally, self determinism: free will.

This is how free will can exist in a deterministic universe and emerge from causal processes in the brain. To the extent that we actively anticipate causality, free will is a causal effect – a consequence – of our human imagination. Thus, not only is free will compatible with determinism, it's a natural, causal, effect of human imagination. They're not antithetical at all.

When determinism meets human imagination, the effect is self determinism. No hocus pocus: just a

Answer 1

this isn't a bad paper (if it is one), but you're basically not making sense, and you really should have summarized it upon posting. Firstly, planning, and creativity are not uniquely human traits (1). Secondly, everything may eternally exist in the future, as some determinists believe (although I am personally pondering this). Since the causal progression is uniformly set, the future is completely predictable. This means that the future exists in a form, which some believe to be physical rather than simply intellectual.



Now if I follow your logic, imagination/creativity is determined by separate causes and not a self-cause, but because they have some relationship with the future, one of their causes is the future, and so imagination distinguishes itself from the normal causal pathway and can for this reason, arbitrarily be a source of "self determinism". I'm sorry, but that doesn't follow at all. It's not even the real future, its just a picture in my head, and there is no real connection to the future, not even if you believe in an infinite number of alternate dimensions, which branch on each difference. There is no connection to the future and no backward causality. Even if there was, its still not self-determining.



The firing in your brain creates the imagined image, and that in turn creates your actions, am I missing something?? So, answer your question, I doubt it.



on a side note; fantasy isn't focused on past events normally. It is usually alternate realities, or futuristic settings.

Answer 2

You definitely have an interesting account of compatibilism. I do, however, have a question that seems to bear greatly towards your system. What is it that causes the human decision to plan for the future, and therefore, self determine? In order for determinism to be true all events that occur must have a prior cause/chain of causes, so it follows that even the event of the human actively anticipating deterministic causality has as its own cause some other event(s). If it is the case (which it must be) that the human imagination is determined by prior causes, then I see no room for actual freedom. If free will is, as you say, a causal effect, then in what relevant sense of the word can it actually be free?



I do understand though that this debate hinges largely on one's conception and definition of 'freedom.' For the libertarian, the notion of freedom precludes any notion decisive inclination. Now, certainly there can be inclination, but if the inclination is decisive in that it necessarily causes its effect then it is excluded from the libertarian definition. However, on the compatibilist worldview, decisive inclination is not relevant because all effects follow necessarily from their causes; freedom simply means something else. Nevertheless, you do have a very compelling account of compatibilism.

Answer 3

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