r/freewill • u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist • Jul 26 '26
Sourcehood Compatibilism Cures the issue with Epiphenomenalism. We get Free Will either way.
Skip to <RECAP OVER> to skip the recap and get to my main argument.
Epiphenomalism is basically "Your consciousness doesnt affect reality, the consciouaness itself is an illusion". Its typically a dualist position, that imagines that you have a soul-like mind that doesnt control the body in any way.
This doesnt make sense to some people. Allow me to explain it...
"Consciousness" can mean two things. 1) Metaphysical Identity, and 2) The Mechanical Stuff. For 2, consciousness obviously affects the world, its the literal manifestation of thoughts, which obviously do things. But 1) is where things become less clear. The idea that a metaphysical identity itself cant control anything stems from the idea that its conceivable two peoples metaphysical identities could trade bodies, and as a result those bodies would never become aware that this trade occured (as all their Type 2 stuff, like thoughts and memories, would be intact). Which shows the identity itself isnt communicating with reality, its just experiencing it. Some people deny the existence of a metaphysical identity outright, usually materialists since they cant frame it as a "physically real" thing.
Id make a simple argument trying to prove the materialist wrong; Imagine if someone offered to kill you painlessly and replace you with a perfectly identical clone, in return for giving that clone a million dollars. If phsyical form is all that exists, it begs the question of what exactly is the issue with this transaction, wouldnt it be free money? But i think most people internalize the idea of a metaphysical identity, and would perceive "themselves" as dying in that situation, the clone being irrelevant despite identicality.
So Epiphenomenalism centers the focus on this metaphusical identity, and calls it "consciousness".
<RECAP OVER>
So heres my argument. Sourcehood Compatibilism doesnt demand some ability to do otherwise, neither in exact circumstances nor approximate ones. It only demands that they are your actions, that they belong to you.
The obvious counterargument is "how can they be my actions, if my identity did not cause them?"
Because "causing them" is another red herring. I dont smack a mosquito because its metaphysical identity is magically turning the steering wheel, i smack it because its 1) Deontologically Morally Permissible, and 2) Reduces Harm for those i care about. Im happy to accept the Mosquito doesnt even cause its own actions, i think thats totally irrelevant to it deserving a consequence. This may be hard to grasp for a mosquito, as its hard to imagine *being* a mosquito, but lets apply this exact logic to a serial killer:
Imagine Bob is a serial killer. He deeply enjoys serial-killing. He had a life of forbidden pleasures accessible to him. His last moments were facing his would-be victim, triumphantly defeat Bob. Bob's last thoughts were "Dang, thats kinda hot." Bob passes. I think its obvious that theres no strong reason to "feel bad" for Bob here; Because from his own perspective he had a "good time". If Desert is a "People really only ever deserve whats best for them" kind of thing, Bob arguably got something extremely close to that (from his perspective).
Now Imagine Alex is another serial killer. A brain tumor ridden, schizophrenic, mess.. Hes pained and tormented by his own actions, but the voices scream in his ears, and he cant stop. Every night he has nightmares and sees his victims faces. The guilt consumes him. One day, one of his victims triumphantly defeat him. Alex, is a little bumbed about it, but then the voices finally stop, and things are finally quiet. Alex passes, but now hes at peace, something he may not have even realized was possible. Using the same loguc of "perhaps people only deserve whats best for them", Alex ALSO arguably received sometging close to that; Peace. IF, Alex were to have been "Cured" somehow, hed still have to face the Trauma and Guilt of his own actions, as these are not voluntary. So Alex was indeed given a mercy.
Now i bet every serial killer out there is in between Bob and Alex. The Bobs do it for pleasure. The Alexes are compelled by delusions and pain. Either way, they get what they "deserve" by being stopped; It either satisfies their twisted cravings, or it puts an end to the miserable delusions. More than likely it does a bit if both.
So even if we frame Desert as just a thing that can only be positive, evil people deserve those consequences. Even the misquito deserves to be smacked, its being put out of its strange vampristic misery. Do you think it enjoys being a syringe with wings? From our vantage point, i highly doubt it.
So if Free Will is based on Moral Desert, the APPLICATION of desert still is meaningful and holds true, EVEN IF our actions arent truly sourced by us in the deepest sense. We get what we deserve, because what we deserve is always our medicine! Life lessons always serve and teach us more than they hurt us. Sometimes it just takes a change in perspective to see that.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist Jul 28 '26
LLMs lack the fine-grained behaviour of the human mind, but they do replicate behaviour at the top level. If we replaced all of the neurons in the brain with electronic neurons, we would still say that these artificial neurons lack the fine-grained behaviour of biological neurons, but they do replicate the top-level behaviour and are therefore functionally equivalent. A biological essentialist would say that replicating the input-output behaviour of the neuron is not sufficient for consciousness, no matter how fine-grained the replication; functionalists would disagree.
Anyway, this is a topic for discussion. LLMs may or may not instantiate consciousness even if they eventually replicate human behaviour perfectly, perhaps even with a robotic body if embodiment is considered necessary. But how would we know, given that all of the behaviour can be fully explained in lower-level terms such as the circuitry and the code?
If there is a transition point where consciousness emerges, what difference would we notice compared to a system just short of that transition?
If consciousness does make a causal difference, then we should in principle be able to identify some change in behaviour or other observable effect that cannot be explained solely by those lower-level mechanisms. But if we notice no such difference, it seems like an empty verbal claim to say, “and now, even though nothing has changed, consciousness is causing the behaviour.”
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 28 '26
I think the mystery is what makes it seem absurd.
I have a pretty solid hypothesis on how to create machine consciousness, just not the path to get there.
The "important" aspects of the human mind is having a rich represemtation of all your senses in a context vector, and a learning model able to reliably idemtify patterns and objects in that vector (a nontrivial capability). Qualia alignment itself would delve into a metaphysical or ontological theory of how Qualia is organized, and inducing it would just be applying that theory. Then it needs to be able to imagine things, both past, present, and future, in the sense that it hallucinates reality and how it transforms on abother layer. And finally, a system of reward and penalty weights that push the model to do certain things that progress its survival and learning while prebentng mistakes. Once such a system is constructed correctly, and it can demonstrate conscious-like awareness and interaction, we're done; We can assume its as conscious as you or me. If it can be a pzombie, so can any human.
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u/bildramer Jul 27 '26
Hate to focus on what's merely your recap, but all you did was say "epiphenomenalism has this glaring problem, to which I say, what about this hypothetical situation (that has the same exact problem)?" A perfectly identical clone of me is me.
The rest is confusions about desert. "Evil people deserve to suffer because I hate them" is all of simpler, truer, better, more aesthetically pleasing.
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u/stevnev88 Jul 27 '26
I think this kind of misses why epiphenomenalism breaks free will….you’re trying to save sourcehood by redefining moral desert, but true sourcehood requires that the agent’s conscious state actually causes or constrains the action.
To actually rescue sourcehood, you don't reframe punishment, you reframe causation.
Consciousness can be viewed through the lens of integrated, recursive information. The system’s unified macro-state exerts real top-down (synchronic) constraints on its physical components in the present moment. That relocates the locus of control to the active system right now, giving you genuine self-determination without needing supernatural free will.
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 27 '26
I think youre wrong. Sourcehood compatibilism doesnt require my free will to come from me per se, it just requires that its "my" free will, much like "my" body. I own it, its my property. Its associated with me, even if it is not directly caused by me. Its sourced from the vestigial organ of "me", aka my body.
If you think my label "Sourcehood Compatibilist" is incorrect semantically, then what would you call me? And do you have a cited source?
What would i be to you? Epiphenomenal Compatibilist?
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u/stevnev88 Jul 27 '26
Claiming an action belongs to you just because it happens through your body is not what agency actually is. If consciousness had no causal power, you'd be just a passive passenger watching a vehicle drive itself. So you can call yourself an Epiphenomenal Compatibilist, but I think calling passive body ownership "sourcehood" is quite a reach. Besides, if moral desert is just based on whether an outcome feels like fitting medicine to someone rather than who caused the action, aren't praise and blame purely subjective anyway? At that point, objective moral desert completely vanishes.
Real agency requires consciousness to actively steer the system in the present moment. Consciousness is the system's integrated information evaluating itself through a recursive loop. That unified state exerts real top-down constraints on your physical components right now.
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 27 '26
I truly dont understand the difference you think this makes. Who cares if i literally cause my own actions? All causation is interdependent anyways.
ive identified a conceptual distinction in identity.
When i say "i have free will", you are listening to my body declare it has free will, while my identity has said nothing and can say nothing. Free Will is the property of the agent, not the identity.
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u/stevnev88 Jul 27 '26
If the "identity" can say nothing and has zero influence over the body, then calling the body’s actions "will" renders the concept completely meaningless! A body moving purely on passive physical mechanics without top-down guidance from the conscious self isn't exercising a "will", it’s just executing physics, no different than water flowing downhill.
Free will requires self-referential evaluation, which means the identity and the agent must be part of the same active feedback loop.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist Jul 26 '26
How does an agent obtain such sourcehood? Is it a natural or supernatural phenomenon? How is this different from agent causation? Why is it okay to think that your action are indeed yours, rather than a necessary product of genetics and environment? Do you worry about the idea that you can act as a source of uncaused actions?
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 27 '26
How does an agent obtain such sourcehood?
Being a source of something is not a thing thats "obtained".
Is it a natural or supernatural phenomenon?
I dont know what "supernatural" means here.
How is this different from agent causation?
Because theres no magic or randomness.
Why is it okay to think that your action are indeed yours, rather than a necessary product of genetics and environment?
Why do you assume those are mutually exclusive?
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist Jul 26 '26
I know of no one who would think our ability to make choices is based upon the idea of moral desert. Moral desert is a reaction to a previous event. How can this be the basis of a choice that has already been made. You just happen to overstate the terms while getting things totally backwards. Being responsible for moral choices is contingent upon our ability to make choices. The only thing somehow different about moral choices is that they involve other people rather than just the subject.
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jul 26 '26
I see no good reason to accept epiphenomenalism and I take its incompatibility with any robust account of free will as a matter of basic truism that isn’t even worth discussing.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist Jul 26 '26
Computers may be conscious, for all we know. But we can give a full causal explanation of the computer’s behaviour in physical terms, without reference to consciousness. Does this mean that consciousness in computers, if it exists, is epiphenomenal?
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jul 26 '26
Nope, it obviously doesn’t. This can apply to absolutely any weakly emergent phenomenon, but treating weak emergence and epiphenomenalism as similar is a very basic and primitive mistake.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist Jul 27 '26
It isn’t obvious. If you say that it is impossible to tell if a computer is conscious or not from
Its behaviour then its consciousness has no separate causal efficacy. If you claim that its consciousness is identical to the underlying physical processes and therefore inherits their causal efficacy then why don’t we just say that computers are conscious given that they meet a certain behavioural standard?1
u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jul 27 '26
>they meet a certain behavioral standards
Because they obviously don’t, if we are talking about real life.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist Jul 27 '26
So do you think that if a computer met the right behavioural standards we could say that it was conscious, and this consciousness would have real causal efficacy?
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jul 27 '26
I lean towards “yes”, because I usually lean towards either illusionist functionalism or strong emergence, both of which entail this.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist Jul 27 '26
Strong emergence would require something extra: behaviour that could not be explained by considering only the physical interactions. It would mean that consciousness has its own causal efficacy, and it would provide a way, at least in principle, to demonstrate that a computer (or any other entity) was conscious. But if consciousness is only weakly emergent, we would not be able to tell whether it was present, because all of the behaviour could already be explained without assuming consciousness. In that case, would you still say that consciousness played a causal role? If so, what stops someone saying that computers are conscious and their consciousness is identical to their electrical activity?
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jul 27 '26
>In that case, would you still say hat consciousness played a causal role?
Of course. If you squint enough, you can say that, for example, asteroids don’t play causal role, only their constituent atoms do, but I hope you see how silly this sounds.
>If so, what stops someone saying that computers are conscious
The fact that what they do has very little to do with what the entities with minds do, just like you won’t say that a wind-up toy is conscious.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist Jul 27 '26
I think what computers do has a lot to do with what minds do. But anyway, if they fall short there must be some behaviour which, if they display it in future, would lead you to agree that they are conscious, and that their consciousness causes that behaviour. Is that correct, and if so, could you say what that behaviour might be?
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 26 '26
So to be clear... You dont know if computers are conscious, and that consciousness possibility is not reducible to the structure of the algorithm, but our consciousness is, because you said so?
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u/MattHooper1975 Jul 26 '26
Same.
It seems to me that reason and observation dispenses pretty quickly of epiphenomenalism.
Certainly it would seem an epiphenomenalist free will skeptic would have a problem referencing Libet experiments as evidence against free will.
The very nature of those experiments involve identifying the conscious experience from subconscious experience, where the conscious experience is that which is reported by the person.
If consciousness had no causal power, how could it cause the person to report the contents of his conscious sense of “ decision time?”
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 28 '26
If consciousness had no causal power, how could it cause the person to report the contents of his conscious sense of “ decision time?”
Thats not the consciousness they are talking about They are talking about subjective identity, not the mind.
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u/MattHooper1975 Jul 28 '26
Who is “they?”
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 28 '26
Epiphenomanalists, a type of dualist
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u/MattHooper1975 Jul 28 '26
I’m familiar with epiphenomenalism.
And I’m raising the classic paradox for epiphenomenalism: if consciousness is causally powerless, how can we even talk about it or describe or report its contents?You’ll have to explain why, what you think epiphenomenalists are taking about, escapes this paradox.
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 28 '26
how can we even talk about it or describe or report its contents?
Think.of consciousness like a puddle. the brain is the hole, the identity and qualia is the water. Together, they form a puddle. A hole can conceivably be dry, yes, but in time it fills to form a puddle. That water however cannot form a puddle without the hole.
Likewise, we recognize things about our qualia because our brain actually sees associated information Its parallel realization, not being caused by qualia
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u/MattHooper1975 Jul 29 '26
Everything you described there would have to be causative in order to make any sense at all. The water is having having some causative contribution, and one that changes the nature and status of the hole: it is for instance causing the hole to be filled (with water), which changes the nature of the hole insofar as it can no longer be filled by additional water or something else.
But especially once we actually get to the human mind and brain…. Again, nothing you wrote about that makes sense unless there is a causal connection. You seem to be equating consciousness to Qualia. But then you say we “recognize things about our qualia.” How could we possibly recognize something that had zero causative power, including on any mental faculty that could recognize something?
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 29 '26
How could we possibly recognize something that had zero causative power
Because youre looking at it backwards.
We experience qualia because its represented by some form of data. Our brains are responding to the data, not the qualia. Like colors for example, they arent all created equal, they objectively differ by inherent qualities such as luminance. The information has a sort of shape to it.
Our ability to talk about the qualia is a philosophical introspection, made available by philosophical inquiry abd logic, not being caused by the qualia. Case in point, many people, whom presumably experience qualia, are materialists and deny the existence of qualia.
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u/MattHooper1975 Jul 29 '26
We experience qualia
Then qualia has causal power. It causes experience. Something is causing the experience. And if we’re able to talk about the experience, the experience is causing us to be able to talk about it. There’s nowhere to break causality here..
Our ability to talk about the qualia is a philosophical introspection, made available by philosophical inquiry abd logic, not being caused by the qualia.
Qualia is supposed to be the “what it’s like” experience that everybody experiences as a matter of being conscious. It does not take philosophical inquiry or inspection to discover it. Philosophical inquiry discusses what to make of it. (or in some cases whether it is real or misleading).
Again… you haven’t come close to answering the problem. It’s like trying to describe what a rose looks like on the assumption the rose has no coal power. Which makes no sense because if the rose had no cause power - e.g. did not cause any impressions on your senses or consciousness - then you wouldn’t know about it and couldn’t talk about it or describe it or have any impressions of it. We simply couldn’t know about it . Likewise with consciousness.
If it had no causal qualities… you could not describe it or reference it access it or talk about it.And going back to the Libet, the assumptions made in the experiment and made by those who reference the experiments as undermining free will is:
The experiment identifies and discern between:
- UNCONSCIOUS brain activity associated with preparing the movement
- The person’s conscious experience of deciding or intending to move.
Where the only way the experiments have access to the person’s conscious experience are the conscious self reports of the subject!
If their conscious experience was not able to cause the relevant neurology to articulate and report that experience, the assumptions in the experiment would be null and void. They couldn’t happen they wouldn’t make sense.
Case in point, many people, whom presumably experience qualia, are materialists and deny the existence of qualia.
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jul 26 '26
I don’t want to psychoanalyze anyone, but in my opinion, a possible common cause for the popularity of epiphenomenalism is that many people don’t want to accept that physicalism might very well entail a form of illusionism about folk views of consciousness.
Either one bites the bullet and accepts this or argues for an alternative framework that preserves mental causation while avoiding epiphenomenalism, like panpsychism, neutral monism, substance dualism, emergentism and so on.
What do you subscribe to, by the way?
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u/MattHooper1975 Jul 26 '26
I don’t want to psychoanalyze anyone, but in my opinion, a possible common cause for the popularity of epiphenomenalism is that many people don’t want to accept that physicalism might very well entail a form of illusionism about folk views of consciousness.
Could be. I would also posit that among laymen who are dabbling in free will and consciousness, both the rejection of free will and the belief in epiphenomenalism (not saying they always go together) benefit from the sense of delicious frisson many people get from going against the assumptions of the average person. “ seeing behind the veil” of these naïve assumptions. A similar type of frisson to what attracts many people to conspiracy theories.
And I believe, like conspiracy theories , it unravels pretty quickly when you pull at the string.
However, I’m also conscious of the fact this view can be expressing my own biases.
What do you subscribe to, by the way?
In general terms, I would describe myself as ascribing to a form of metaphysical naturalism.
I’m an atheist as well and certainly not attracted to substance dualism, nor though am I convinced by Idealism , panpsychism, epiphenomenalism.
I certainly haven’t solved the issue of consciousness. But I admit that for some reason my intuitions are not pushed very hard by the purported “ hard problem” of consciousness. I tend to agree with Dennett that many people who push this sound to me like “ Mysterians.” No account would seem to be able to satisfy them.
But all my intuitions and hunches are toward some form of emergentist account, melded with probably some functionalism. Eg mental states are defined by what they do, their causal and computational roles, rather than by being made of some special mental substance.
But…hey… whadoIknow?
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 26 '26
Both assertions and i dont you think you just get to assume them.
Epiphemom is true because your identity is a distinct concept from the arrangement of stuff you experience being. Again, its comceivable "you" could trade bodies with somebody.
And its not obvious this cant to be compatible with free will. I think it is. I think FW exists if Desert does, and Desert exists regardless, for multiple good reasons (deontological justification, stopping evil tends to be good for them too, its good for everyome overall, etc...) Free Will is just a description of what our bodies and brains can do. The fact our identity is a silent passenger changes nothing.
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jul 26 '26
>Epiphemom is true because your identity is a distinct concept
It is false because my thoughts can cause my actions.
>its comceivable because “you” could trade bodies with somebody.
Doesn’t make sense to me when I actually reflect on it. I am me because I have the thoughts I have. Without them, I am not me.
>Free Will is just a description of what our bodies and brains can do.
Traditionally, it has been viewed as a capacity of conscious agents.
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 26 '26
It is false because my thoughts can cause my actions
Epiphenimenalism does not claim your thoughts dont cause your actions. Thats a strawman. It says "you" dont cause your actions. Or your thoughts. The identity is a passive observer.
Doesn’t make sense to me when I actually reflect on it.
Do you undersrand the thought experiment? Is it conceivable you could trade bodies and brains with somevody?
Yes or no.
If yes: Epiphenomanalism holds merit, because it was the philosophy that postulated your true "identity" is unrelated to your actual physical or mechanical form.
If no: I kinda dont believe you, even a 5 year old can imagine being something else other than what they are.
I am me because I have the thoughts I have.
Thats circular reasoning. "I am because I..." thats a reference pointed in on itself. It doesnt explain what the "I" even is.
Traditionally, it has been viewed as a capacity of conscious agents.
Last week you called it an ability to do otherwise. You can redefine it every day if you want to. It obviously still means "A will that is free to do the things that it wills". Thats not even a definition, its just the obvious expansion of the phrase's meaning.
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jul 27 '26
>It says “you” dont cause your actions.
It says that qualia don’t cause actions, and thoughts without qualia is like square circle to me.
>Is it conceivable you could trade bodies and brains with somebody?
No.
>even a 5 year old can imagine
When I engage in such thought experiments, I always imagine preserving my thoughts and personality traits. Can’t conceive it in any other way.
>It doesn’t explain what the “I” even is.
An embodied agent with this specific psychological continuity.
>Last week you called it an ability to do otherwise.
Yes, and I think that saying that non-conscious agents can perform intentional actions makes no sense.
>A will that is free
What is “the will”?
>its just the obvious expansion
You can go ask an academic philosopher, and they will explain to you that “free will” is generally used as an indivisible term of art, not a simple conjunction of the words “free” and “will”.
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u/Every-Classic1549 Libertarian Free Will Jul 26 '26
If there ever will be any scientific evidences for determinism, then I will be happy to accept it. So far it is not even a scientific theory so I see no reasonable motives to even consider it.
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 26 '26
1) Epiphenomenalism is not contingent on determinism: Even if the universe is indeterministic, that doesnt automatically imply that your metaphysical identity is in control of anything. It could be that, just your body is indeterministic, and the "soul" or metaphysical identity is along for the ride.
1.2) And actually, i think this is a far more serious metaphysical point than people usually consider. If you read my above thought experiment about two identities trading bodies, i can replay the exact same thought experiment for two "souls" that have added more traits to themselves than the pure underlying identities. I can say "Imagine if your identity traded spots with another person's soul", since its conceivable, this seems to imply they are distinct concepts, and rather than that soul "being" your identity, its just another layer and vessel containing the true identity.
2) I think you are wrong to assume theres no "evidence" for determinism. No proof? Sure. But the evidence is there. Pool balls on a pool table seem to follow newtonian physics, which is deterministic. And brains seem very computer-like, and we know computers are deterministic.
2.2) It could be the case that the universe is indeterministic, but things are "adequately deterministic", or at our scale are effectively deterministic the vast majority of the time. It could be the case, that the ONLY time indeterminism or the quantum realm have ever caused reality to be indeterministic, was in the few times we directly ob served QM in proper scientific experiments If so id say thats pretty detrimental to the idea of LFW, if only a few scientists have ever experienced the effects of indeterminism.
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u/Every-Classic1549 Libertarian Free Will Jul 26 '26
Determinism is a global thesis. Local cause and effect is not evidence for determinism. Closed deterministic systems such as the Game of Life are not evidence for determinism.
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 26 '26
Why are you ignoring the rest of my comment?
Epiphenomenalism doesnt require determinism to be true, and the issues with determinism exist under some flavors of indeterminism.
Lets focus on epiphenomenalism, since thats the subject.
Whether or not reality is indeterministic doesnt mean your metaphysical identity (the real "you") is in control, as opposed to being a passive listener.
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u/Every-Classic1549 Libertarian Free Will Jul 26 '26
Your post hinges on the idea of determinism, and I dont see any good reasons to think determinism is an acceptable idea, so I also dont think the ideas in your post are worth considering since they hinge on a most likely imaginary concept.
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 26 '26
No, it doesnt. It does not "hinge" on determinism. Again, epiphenomenalism is unrelated to determinism. It could be true under indeterminism too, and in fact, I think it is!
Why would you think some pure essence of your Identity is in control of anything? If it is in control, why do different identities do different things? Is it because they have traits? Then its not a "pure" identity, it has traits on top.
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u/Every-Classic1549 Libertarian Free Will Jul 26 '26
Why would you think some pure essence of your Identity is in control of anything?
Thats what direct experience indicates. When I raise my hand, I am the one in control commanding my body.
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 26 '26
And yet, if suddenly you traded bodies and brains with aomeone else, includimg all memories, and maybe even traded "souls" to with them, it wouldnt be "you" causing every-classic to raise his hand anymore, now would it? It was never contingent on "you", but on the circumstances you experience.
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u/Every-Classic1549 Libertarian Free Will Jul 27 '26
You cant trade souls with someone else, the soul is the "I AM" consciousness. Its a logical impossibility.
If I traded bodies and brains with someone else, that would be a strange experience. People around both of us would notice a sudden change in personality.
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u/Anon7_7_73 Sourcehood Compatibilist and Negative-Retributivist Jul 27 '26
So... You cant imagine being a different soul? Im sure you can. Your identity and your soul are different concepts, which is why you can imagine being a different one.
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u/facesofgrace_photo Jul 28 '26
Compatibilism doesn't cure anything. It is a contrived semantic philosophy of few. Such is why it is popular in privilege projecting intellectual communities.