"The numbers do not demonstrate anything."

[Syne]

The capacity to choose requires the mental capacity to model multiple outcomes. An inability to mentally model multiple outcomes explicitly requires an inability to model a single outcome. Your original statement can be restated as follows:

"Without the mental capacity to model an outcome, we cannot hold people personally responsible."

I would completely agree with this statement; although, I suspect not for the reasons you are expecting. If a person is unable to mentally model an outcome then that person will not be able to learn, think, or even remember the last moment. They will die shortly after birth and dead babies absolutely cannot hold people personally responsible.

If we restate what you said to Arioch earlier:

"You cannot logically have both the mental capacity to model an outcome and a violation of causation"

I see a potentially non-sequiteur statement; however, I first have to ask what you mean by violation of causation?

Capacity to model outcomes is only necessary for making more informed choices. People make choices all the time without any clear idea or awareness of consequences, whether due to a lack of available information or an abundance of options. This is a fallacy of composition, where you've inferred something true of an informed choice is also true of choices in general.

Capacity to model outcomes does not, itself, necessitate volition. One could possibly model outcomes without any inherent ability to choose otherwise, coerced by past and/or external forces.

 

[Arioch]

@Syne --

And what evidence is there that we can "choose otherwise"?

 

[Syne]

@Syne --

And what evidence is there that we can "choose otherwise"?

Perhaps you missed this, from a link I posted earlier.

While there was an RP [readiness potential] before volunteers made their decision to move, the signal was the same whether or not they elected to tap. Miller concludes that the RP may merely be a sign that the brain is paying attention and does not indicate that a decision has been made.

Miller and Trevena also failed to find evidence of subconscious decision-making in a second experiment. This time they asked volunteers to press a key after the tone, but to decide on the spot whether to use their left or right hand. As movement in the right limbs is related to the brain signals in the left hemisphere and vice versa, they reasoned that if an unconscious process is driving this decision, where it occurs in the brain should depend on which hand is chosen. But they found no such correlation. -http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17835-free-will-is-not-an-illusion-after-all.html

 

[Arioch]

@Syne --

So that constitutes evidence that we do have choice? What makes you so certain that the appearance of choice isn't simply an illusion put on by our brains? Our brains are certainly capable of fooling us(and themselves).

 

[Syne]

@Syne --

So that constitutes evidence that we do have choice? What makes you so certain that the appearance of choice isn't simply an illusion put on by our brains? Our brains are certainly capable of fooling us(and themselves).

If you don't understand the experiments, just say so. It also seems you haven't bothered to read any of the links I posted, so here's a sample.

The results were clear and provocative. As described in a forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, the brain’s readiness signal was reduced in those with a weakened belief in free will. What’s more, the signal varied with the force of these beliefs, being weakest in those who were most skeptical about free will. The effect was clear a full second before the volunteers made a conscious decision to move, suggesting that abstract beliefs are shaping intent at a basic, preconscious level.

This is the first evidence that high-level beliefs can influence basic motor processes, and the findings could help explain why such beliefs lead to antisocial and irresponsible acts. Putting less effort into our actions could lead to a diminished sense of responsibility for those actions, and this depleted sense of responsibility could in turn lead to careless behavior—cheating in life, lack of discipline, even relapse. -http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/were-only-human/a-sobering-message-about-free-will.html

Students who read the passage advocating determinism and against free will "cheated" significantly more often than those who read the passage on consciousness that didn't mention free will. These students also were significantly more likely to believe in determinism compared to the other group, so it seems likely that this increased belief in determinism led directly to the "cheating" behavior. -http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/04/changing_belief_in_free_will_c.php

For what the TMS revealed was that the region of motor cortex that controls the piano-playing fingers also expanded in the brains of volunteers who imagined playing the music--just as it had in those who actually played it. -http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580438,00.html

If choosing to think about a certain thing physiologically alters the brain then we're left with circular reasoning that the brain causes the thoughts to affect a change in itself, which is contrary to the experiment where the subject is told what to think about.