compatibilism

[Immanuel Can]

But for many hard determinists what we believe about free will re the human brain is on par with the thunderstorm.

That's purely assumptive on their part. There's no science in that claim, and they have no special knowledge, by their own admission.

And they don't live like they even believe it.

In other words, reality here is all ontological. There is no teleological component.

Ontology and teleology are different departments of philosophy, but they're not opposites. A person who believes in teleology also believes in ontology, by definition.

Other than in how the mind tricks us into believing that there is. Which most are compelled to call God.

That's purely assumptive again. Maybe the Theists are right: that the mind isn't "tricked' into believing there's teleology, but is rather intuiting what is actually there. Maybe they're also right about God.

In any case, the Determinist has nothing but his wishful thinking to give him a reason to prefer his version of events, since his belief is utterly unscientific, being premised on an unfalsifiable but also utterly unprovable claim.

verification and falsification are just along for the ride as well.

No, only when we look at them merely phenomenologically. If we're trying to choose a theory that's scientific, then they rule out a theory like Determinism. It will never be, and can never be, scientific, because it cannot be falsified.

But then [from my frame of mind] around and around it goes.

No, no...that's too quick an answer. Think it through.

There's a massive difference between saying, "Well, Determinism could be true," and saying, "Determinism is based on science." It's not. And one of the things that disqualifies it is its utter unfalsifiablity. That's criterial, not opinion-based. It's by the very definition of what "doing science" demands that Determinism is disqualified, not by my mere perspective or opinion, or yours.

There it is! Since there are no conditions under which Determinism could ever be even potentially shown false, it can never be established on any scientific basis that it's true either.

It's a dead theory, so far a science is concerned. Science can't help us with it.

Of course, imagine a thousand years ago speculations by the best and brightest minds

That's utterly irrelevant, actually. A thousand years from now, an unfalsifiable hypothesis will still be unfalsifiable, and even if people had come to beleve it wasn't, it still would be.

Then for me it's back to the grim conclusion that, dead and gone, I'm no longer part of anything at all. Yet still unable to stop myself from pondering it all the more. Though maybe only because I was never able to opt to stop.

Let's take that as a topic: what does believing this "grim conclusion" get you? In other words, what makes Determinism attractive for you?

We've already seen it's not scientific or necessary. It's just a wish. So what makes that a winsome wish?

I, like you, have no way to determine if what I think here is ever really an autonomous option.

The problem is simple, really: you can either go with a totally un-scientifically-demonstrable theory (Determinism) and spend your life worrying it's true, or you can go with the obvious existential fact that nobody ever lives as a Determinist, and use that observation to open yourself back up to the possibility that Determinism might be just totally wrong.

Here though I'm back to Schopenhauer:

Why? Schopenhauer may well have been totally wrong about this. Personally, I think he was. So his word floats no boats on this issue.

But you have to first presume that free will does exists in order to presume further that some reasons are good and some reasons are not.

But you do! I can tell, because you argue for Determinism.

Why argue? Your mind and mine are, according to Determinism's "lights," only guanteed to be in whatever state was predetermined for them. You can't change my mind, or I yours. But I can see you think you can make a case for Determinism here.

But why are you discussing? Why contend for the view? If Determinism were true, there could be nothing less important than whether or not anybody believes in it, since " belief" is not a causal factor for Determinists.

[promethean75]

"In any case, the Determinist has nothing but his wishful thinking to give him a reason to prefer his version of events, since his belief is utterly unscientific, being premised on an unfalsifiable but also utterly unprovable claim."

This is true, but watch this.

Neither is the theory of freewill. Now, since neither theory is falsifiable, and only one can be true - if you had to guess, how would you justify your guess?

Observe that literally everything in the physical universe appears to behave and act according to what we call natural laws; very, very, very routine and repetitious events seeming to follow a certain same order every time. In fact, I've never hit the eight ball with the cue ball and it not move.... despite the lack of logical connection via Hume, making the events only contiguous.

Assuming everything else in the universe performs with this kind of regularity as bodies in motion producing and responding to physical and chemical laws, etc., why would I guess that a human body is any different?

Ah.

Your theory of freewill is a greater theoretical stretch than determinism could ever dream of being. And this is why; because it is a very invested, very important, very sacred idea, without which your whole uninteresting world would be thrown into crisis.... and your whole dang philosophy would damn near collapse.

It's that preciousness alone that permits idgits like the above to even dare point out that determinism isn't falsifiable... while the theory of freewill is infinitely less falsifiable.


That being said, since neither can be known a posteriori (through experience), if one were true, this truth would be a priori.

Now of the available ontologies in which to infer an a priori truth, substance dualism would be infinitely more difficult to explain than substance monism, where there is one causation working with one material.

So anyway ax yourself how freewill could possibly exist unless a human being were some kind of special body with superpowers that allow it to suspend physical causation and suddenly and spontaneously become exempt to the physical and chemical laws that everything else in the universe operates by.

And after you ax yourself this question, and believe you have come up with an explanation, please don't provide it for me cuz I've heard them all before.

There is no ghost in the machine, my nigs. I'm sorry.

[henry quirk]

free will -- libertarian agent causation -- is reality

man is not mired in causal chains: he bends them, begins them, ends them

man is a composite being, spirit and material (or mind and body, if you prefer) as one; he is reason, conscience, free will, and causal/creative power

man is a person, not an animal

everyone readin' this knows this is true

[Immanuel Can]

"In any case, the Determinist has nothing but his wishful thinking to give him a reason to prefer his version of events, since his belief is utterly unscientific, being premised on an unfalsifiable but also utterly unprovable claim."

This is true, but watch this.

Neither is the theory of freewill. Now, since neither theory is falsifiable, and only one can be true - if you had to guess, how would you justify your guess?

Well, I'd start with the obvious fact that nobody lives, or can live, as if Determinism is true. That would be an astonishing fact if, as the Determinist requires, we human beings are nothing but products of time plus chance. How would time plus chance, even supposing time plus chance had a teleological "plan," instill in one of its creatures both the ability to understand Determinism as a theory, but also an inability to live as if it were? And if disbelieving in Determinism is the most "survival-adaptive" of the two beliefs, which it certainly is, of course, then how would time plus chance "favour" an untrue belief over a true one?

Justifiying such a claim would take a very elaboroate kind of explantion. So the burden then becomes the Determinists to show that, in spite of Determinism neither practicable nor survival adaptive, it's still true. And then they have the burden to show we should care -- because if Determinism is true, then all beliefs are merely contingent, caused factors in an impersonal and inevitable chain. Belief doesn't matter, because it doesn't implinge on the Deterministic causal chain at all. So whatever we "believe" is just a product of physical-material action, not truth.

But I notice that no Determinist-inclined arguer here wants to take up this point at all. The unliveablility of Determinism is obvious, it seems, even to them. And they don't seem to want to remark on it at all, let alone try to explain how this can be.

Why are they so chicken of speaking about this?

Observe that literally everything in the physical universe appears to behave and act according to what we call natural laws;

Except you and me, of course. We're "fooling ourselves" as we speak to each other that we are "making choices," or "believing things," or "changing minds," when, according to Determinism, it's not even possible we could be doing any of these things in reality.

Your theory of freewill is a greater theoretical stretch than determinism could ever dream of being.

Quite the opposite, I would say.

In describing how we actually live, our acts of volition and choice, our beliefs, personalities, identities, rationalities, and so on, Determinism has no explanatory power at all. It's only answer is, "Whatever it is, it all has to be nothing but a physical-material blip." That's a pretty poor accounting of things, I think anybody would have to agree.

...determinism isn't falsifiable... while the theory of freewill is infinitely less falsifiable.

In a sense, this is true: but it really doesn't help Determinism to point it out.

The unfalsifiabillty of free will is much less of a problem, actually, for free will than it is for Determinism, for one simple reason: Determinism's only claimed advantage is that it's more "realistic" or "scientific" than belief in free will. But as we have seen, this claim turns out not to be remotely true: Determinism's not at all scientific: it's not even falsifiable in theory.

What's more, Determinism is ardently anti-scientific: for if the pronouncements of a scientist's brain are actually no more than the accidental detritus of physical-material operations, why should any scientist believe them? They're powered by accident, not by any correlation to truth. So a Determinist should think we know, and can know, nothing about truth at all; we can't even be sure we're "knowing" we're subject to physical-material causes, since the only thing that can be making us think it is another physical-material cause.

But unlike Determinism, free will does not come bundled with strict physical-materialism. In fact, it denies that. Free will allows that there are some things that are caused by physical-material actions, but has no problem also saying that there are existential, rational, abstract, ideational and other such things in the universe, conscious processes targeted at things like belief and truth. So science can, per free will, start to "believe" things again, and start to have some suspicion that scientific findings may speak to the issue of truth, not merely be byproducts of impersonal cause and effect.

That being said, since neither can be known a posteriori (through experience),

Au contraire: the fact that we all do "experience" free will makes a very good a posteriori case for it (though, as I said earlier, Determinists seem desperate not to talk about that point). Determinism has no such similar case. A posteriori, it looks like nothing one ever actually experiences.

Now of the available ontologies in which to infer an a priori truth, substance dualism would be infinitely more difficult to explain than substance monism, where there is one causation working with one material.

That is true. But surely you can't be trying to say that a two-factor explanation is so much more complex than a one-factor one that the two-factor one cannot possibly be true. That's a gross overestimation of the mathematical difference between 1 and 2, surely.

More importantly, simplicity is not in itself a metric of truth. An explanation does not get to win automatically, just because it requires fewer elements, or is easier to understand, than a more sophisticated one. For example, the Aristotelian theory of bodily humours requires only four elements; but that doesn't make it better than bacteriology, which contains all sorts of different elements. Even to suggest that would be silly.

In conclusion, I have to also say that your self-confidence is very ironic. It's ironic, because according to Determinism, the reason you feel smug must be because you were determined by prior physical-material forces to feel smug. It can't be because your belief is related to truth. If it had any such relationship, that relationship would have to be accidental, and your brain is not actualy signaling to you by way of your smugness, that you have "the right answer." Instead, it's just still doing what dumb physical-causal chains do: making you do what you do, of feel what you feel.

So I don't see in your own behaviour here that you have any actual belief in Determinism. If you did, why would you be arguing for it?

[promethean75]

"But I notice that no Determinist-inclined arguer here wants to take up this point at all. The unliveablility of Determinism is obvious, it seems, even to them. And they don't seem to want to remark on it at all, let alone try to explain how this can be. Why are they so chicken of speaking about this?"

I'ont know about others, but the reason I would avoid that question is because it's nonsensical, not because I'm a chicken.

If you can look at the world and observe countless other things existing without freewill, but then still ax how a human being could exist without having it, perhaps you ought not be doing philosophy?

Really bro your understanding of what determinism is, how it operates, what it means, and what it doesn't mean, is so bound up in and ravelled by shit so strange (no doubt of religious origins) I'd not even know where to begin even if I gave a darn in explaining anything to you.

I dunno, maybe start with Libet's experiment if you are having trouble grasping determinism on strictly philosophical grounds.... and don't get back to me after you've looked at it.

[promethean75]

Here, Take Five and watch this. It's the shortest and easiest one I could find for ya by your homeboy Harris:

https://youtu.be/iA6Qc8h8ulQ

[Immanuel Can]

...the reason I would avoid that question is because it's nonsensical...

"It's nonsensical," he says -- arguing.

See, even you can't live as if Determinism were true.

According to you, "bro," I'm predetermined to believe in free will. And you are predetermined to believe in Determinism, but not to live like you do. From a Deterministic perspective, there's simply no more to be said than that.

If you can look at the world and observe countless other things existing without freewill, but then still ax how a human being could exist without having it, perhaps you ought not be doing philosophy?

Actually, that's about the least philosophical kind of argument you could make. It follows the pattern, "Most critters on the planet are insects, therefore we should believe humans are insects."

Ordinarily, a person can't even make up logic that bad. You must really be trying hard.

[iambiguous]

Two Conceptions of Free Will
Matthew Gliatto
Published in ILLUMINATION

The word “compatibilist” in compatibilist free will comes from this argument that the idea of free will is compatible with determinism.

Yes, the arguments. After all, what are arguments here but words defining and defending other words. So, sure, if words like "compatibilism" are thought by you to mean what they do "in your head" then you merely have to connect the dots intellectually between the premises you think up and a conclusion that is derived "by definition" from them.

We all do that here. Instead, where things inevitably become problematic is when we are faced with the task of demonstrating to others how "for all practical purposes" this is applicable to the actual behaviors we choose.

According to compatibilism, free will can be defined as a situation in which there is no external force that prevents you from doing what you want. (By “external”, they mean outside your own body, outside your own brain.) For example, there is no external force that is preventing me from going outside right now. So according to a compatibilist, I am free to go outside right now …… even though, in the philosophical sense, my future behavior has already been determined.

Okay, but what if you define free will as a situation in which the "internal" brain/mind components of a choice just "somehow" permit you to opt among alternative behaviors...even though neither science nor philosophy is able to explain how this came about when matter evolved into us.

But then [to me] this part...

"I am free to go outside right now…even though, in the philosophical sense, my future behavior has already been determined."

...continues to stymie me. What "on Earth" does "in the philosophical sense" mean here in regard to my future behavior? To me it just comes back to what you have come to believe -- re dasein -- these words mean "in your head".

When [for me] "in my head" here and now "for all practical purposes", my future behaviors will be what they can only be because the external and the internal factors are inextricably intertwined in the laws of matter.

This also goes for situations where someone chooses between multiple options. For example, let’s say you ask a little child whether they would rather go to Wendy’s or Dunkin Donuts. There is no external force preventing the kid from choosing either of those options. So according to a compatibilist, that child has free will and is making a free choice ……… even though a compatibilist would also say that the child’s choice has already been determined (we just don’t know what it is yet).

Thus, compatibilists claim that we are free to do what we want, even though our future behaviors have already been determined. They think of freedom as simply the absence of obstacles.

Or...

Their brain compels them to think this given that their idea of an obstacle itself was hard-wired into them by the laws of nature.

Or think of yourself dreaming that you ask a child whether they would rather go to Wendy's or to Dunkin Doughnut. The child tells you she'd rather go to Taco Bell. And there you are at Taco Bell ordering a Big Mac on your way to a great adventure.

Just nothing more than your brain doing its thing.

[iambiguous]

free will -- libertarian agent causation -- is reality

man is not mired in causal chains: he bends them, begins them, ends them

man is a composite being, spirit and material (or mind and body, if you prefer) as one; he is reason, conscience, free will, and causal/creative power

man is a person, not an animal

everyone readin' this knows this is true

Again, aside from just believing this "in your head" and then asserting it to others here as though anyone who does not believe the same is inherently/necessarily wrong, how would you go about demonstrating/verifying it ontologically? Teleologically? What are your own conclusions regarding how and why the "human condition" itself fits into a definitive understanding of existence?

This to me is a classic example of the "general description intellectual contraption" that revolves around the assumption that "by definition" it is true because only your own definitions are allowed to be considered.

But the words aren't connected to the world. To a particular context. They merely presume that if Mary aborts her unborn fetus she is morally responsible because "by definition" -- your own -- she has free will.

[iambiguous]

But for many hard determinists what we believe about free will re the human brain is on par with the thunderstorm.

That's purely assumptive on their part. There's no science in that claim, and they have no special knowledge, by their own admission.

And they don't live like they even believe it.

Special knowledge of what? The definitive scientific -- philosophical? spiritual?-- knowledge necessary to fully differentiate matter in a storm cloud from matter in the human brain? Instead [compelled or not] they start with their own set of subjective assumptions.

Then with respect to age old antinomies like the free will/determinism debate on to Rumsfeld...

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

wiki notes examples of antinomies:

⦁ the limitation of the universe in respect to space and time.
⦁ the theory that the whole consists of indivisible atoms (whereas, in fact, none such exist)
⦁ the problem of free will in relation to universal causality.
⦁ the existence of a universal being.

And, as exasperating as it might become for some, we are all in the same boat here.

In other words, reality here is all ontological. There is no teleological component.

Ontology and teleology are different departments of philosophy, but they're not opposites. A person who believes in teleology also believes in ontology, by definition.[

But this thread revolves around establishing whether what one believes about either of them, he or she was able to opt of their own volition to believe something else instead. And then, presuming he or she can, how they would actually demonstrate this scientifically and/or philosophically. Or for the religious among us, theologically/spiritually.

Other than in how the mind tricks us into believing that there is. Which most are compelled to call God.

That's purely assumptive again. Maybe the Theists are right: that the mind isn't "tricked' into believing there's teleology, but is rather intuiting what is actually there. Maybe they're also right about God.

Maybe, sure. But then we are back to demonstrating it even presuming free will. And, given human autonomy, my interest in God and religion revolve around these matters:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence your God
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and spiritual paths
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your God/spiritual path

There's a massive difference between saying, "Well, Determinism could be true," and saying, "Determinism is based on science." It's not. And one of the things that disqualifies it is its utter unfalsifiablity. That's criterial, not opinion-based. It's by the very definition of what "doing science" demands that Determinism is disqualified, not by my mere perspective or opinion, or yours.

Who is arguing that determinism is based on science? Certainly not me. I merely point to the mind-boggling implications of nature creating matter that evolved into us resulting in scientists that may or may not be compelled by the laws of nature to investigate whether or not their investigation itself was predicated on human autonomy. Then the assumptions that you may or may not be compelled by nature to make here.

I think an important difference between the two of us is that, given free will, you seem determined to argue that those who don't think like you do about science and determinism are wrong, whereas I am more than willing to acknowledge that the odds my own point of view here reflects the definitive or optimal explanation is almost certainly remote.

There it is! Since there are no conditions under which Determinism could ever be even potentially shown false, it can never be established on any scientific basis that it's true either.

It's a dead theory, so far a science is concerned. Science can't help us with it.

Of course, imagine a thousand years ago speculations by the best and brightest minds

That's utterly irrelevant, actually. A thousand years from now, an unfalsifiable hypothesis will still be unfalsifiable, and even if people had come to believe it wasn't, it still would be.

Of course: the conclusions you come to here "in your head" transcend the actual evolution of scientific discoveries down through the ages. Which just prompts me to remind you that...

"It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe." nasa

Although, sure, that other 95% of not normal matter is no doubt completely irrelevant to grasping the matter that is, among other things, the "human condition". And whatever science -- philosophers? theologians? -- discover about it a 1,000 years from now it won't make an iota of difference. Your conclusions here will still pertain.

Not that you will be around to say, "I told you so".

Then for me it's back to the grim conclusion that, dead and gone, I'm no longer part of anything at all. Yet still unable to stop myself from pondering it all the more. Though maybe only because I was never able to opt to stop.

Let's take that as a topic: what does believing this "grim conclusion" get you? In other words, what makes Determinism attractive for you?

We've already seen it's not scientific or necessary. It's just a wish. So what makes that a winsome wish?

Philosophy [from my frame of mind] isn't about what the conclusions I arrive at "gets me". It's about what seems reasonable to me. Here and now. Someone may as well ask "what does being an atheist get you?" or "what does being 'fractured and fragmented' in regard to your moral and political value judgments get you?

On the other hand, I know what believing in a God, the God gets folks. Or what believing that morality is objective gets them. Or what believing in free will gets them.

But that's not the same as demonstrating empirically, materially, phenomenologically that these things are true.

I, like you, have no way to determine if what I think here is ever really an autonomous option.

The problem is simple, really: you can either go with a totally un-scientifically-demonstrable theory (Determinism) and spend your life worrying it's true, or you can go with the obvious existential fact that nobody ever lives as a Determinist, and use that observation to open yourself back up to the possibility that Determinism might be just totally wrong.

Here though I'm back to Schopenhauer:

Why? Schopenhauer may well have been totally wrong about this. Personally, I think he was. So his word floats no boats on this issue.

Again, from my own subjective frame of mind, this tendency on your part to simply assert things of this sort. To assert that Schopenhauer's speculations don't float your boat so, if they do float the boats of others, they just aren't thinking it through "wisely".

Then the part where, perhaps, you to link this into the assumptions you make about...God?

But you have to first presume that free will does exists in order to presume further that some reasons are good and some reasons are not.

But you do! I can tell, because you argue for Determinism.

You can tell. End of discussion? Your reasons being the good ones. By definition?

Why argue? Your mind and mine are, according to Determinism's "lights," only guanteed to be in whatever state was predetermined for them. You can't change my mind, or I yours. But I can see you think you can make a case for Determinism here.

But why are you discussing? Why contend for the view? If Determinism were true, there could be nothing less important than whether or not anybody believes in it, since " belief" is not a causal factor for Determinists.

Again, I merely note that given the life I've live -- all the particular experiences, information, knowledge etc., pertaining to free will that came my way -- I have come to accept a "philosophical prejudice" that I am now typing these words given the only possible reality in the only possible world. But, unlike you [from my perspective], in no way, shape or form am I arguing that my frame of mind comes closest to the "whole truth" about determinism; and that if others think differently than I do, they just don't "get it". They don't grasp what it really is.

[Immanuel Can]

...they start with their own set of subjective assumptions.

They not only "start" with them...the whole view also ends with them. There's no scientific evidence for Determinism, not only because it's unfalsifiable, but also because Determinism itself makes science out to be nothing but cause-effect itself, and thus unrelated to truth.

Then with respect to age old antinomies like the free will/determinism debate on to Rumsfeld...

You seem to like this quotation. I don't know why.

And, as exasperating as it might become for some, we are all in the same boat here.

Actually, we're not, for a very good reason. Determinism requires that all is physical-material causes, and can't even affirm science. Belief in free will does not, and can accept a scientific explanation as being related to truth. And ex post facto, free will is the way we all live. Determinism's the way nobody lives.

And that's an objectively true claim: nobody in human history has ever been able to live as if Determinism is the comprehensive explanation of everything. That fact needs explaining by Determinists.

Maybe, sure. But then we are back to demonstrating it even presuming free will. And, given human autonomy, my interest in God and religion revolve around these matters:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence your God

You can't believe in "demonstrable proof" if you're a Determinist. Instead, everything is just a cause-effect relation. Belief in proof isn't real; belief is only what one has been caused to experience.

2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?

I don't see how this is remotely relevant to the problem of Determinism. Why would we think a Deterministic universe would have to apportion all beliefs equal footing? It seems obvious to me it apportions them no footing at all.

3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and spiritual paths

I've no idea what this means.

4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your God/spiritual path

Determinism has to say that whatever's happened, just happened. It has no "theodicy problem" in it.

I think there are issues in your questions worth addressing...but I don't see the relevance to Determinism.

There's a massive difference between saying, "Well, Determinism could be true," and saying, "Determinism is based on science." It's not. And one of the things that disqualifies it is its utter unfalsifiablity. That's criterial, not opinion-based. It's by the very definition of what "doing science" demands that Determinism is disqualified, not by my mere perspective or opinion, or yours.

Who is arguing that determinism is based on science? Certainly not me.

Oh, sorry...I thought you were saying you thought you had reason to believe Determinism was true. But you have no such argument? Okay.

I am more than willing to acknowledge that the odds my own point of view here reflects the definitive or optimal explanation is almost certainly remote.

Oh. Then we agree. The chance of Determinism being true does, indeed seem very remote to me.

"It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy...."

I see no particular conclusion warranted from this. You'll have to be more explicit, I'm afraid.

Let's take that as a topic: what does believing this "grim conclusion" get you? In other words, what makes Determinism attractive for you?

We've already seen it's not scientific or necessary. It's just a wish. So what makes that a winsome wish?

Philosophy [from my frame of mind] isn't about what the conclusions I arrive at "gets me". It's about what seems reasonable to me.

Great. What are the "reasons" for thinking Determinism is true? That's what I'm not seeing.

I accept your claim that it's all a matter of "subjective assumptions," no matter how unlikely I regard those assumptions to be, in light of how human beings actually have to live. But "reasons"...those, I don't see here.

But that's not the same as demonstrating empirically, materially, phenomenologically that these things are true.

Phenomenologically and sociologically, we can demonstrate it from the fact (I'll say it again) that NOBODY LIVES AS A DETERMINIST. That's a phenomenon, and sociological fact.

I marvel that nobody wants to address that fact.

But you do! I can tell, because you argue for Determinism.

You can tell. End of discussion? Your reasons being the good ones. By definition?

No. Not at all. I'm not making a rhetorical flourish here. It's an observation.

Right now, you are not behaving like a Determinist. You are arguing...which is a thing a Determinist would believe is impossible to be involved in any causal chain. Minds don't "change": they are always simply what they are fated to be, by Determinism.

As I said before:

Why argue? Your mind and mine are, according to Determinism's "lights," only guanteed to be in whatever state was predetermined for them. You can't change my mind, or I yours. But I can see you think you can make a case for Determinism here.

But why are you discussing? Why contend for the view? If Determinism were true, there could be nothing less important than whether or not anybody believes in it, since " belief" is not a causal factor for Determinists.

So let me put the question bluntly: If free will is an illusion, and Determinism is true, then how is it possible that 100% of all people who have ever lived have lived on the basis of their belief that free will is true, and 100% of the Determinists have been unable to live, even for a short time, as if their Determinism were true?

I'm asking for your empirical-sociological explanation of that observable fact.

[henry quirk]

Biggy,

aside from just believing this...and then asserting it to others here as though anyone who does not believe the same is inherently/necessarily wrong, how would you go about demonstrating/verifying it...?

first, I don't assert others are wrong: flat out, I say anyone claimin' they're not a free will is lyin' or nuts

second, I don't have to demonstrate or verify diddly: every person readin' these words, and the billions who never will, demonstrate agency, causal power, free will all the damned time

we can argue about why and how man is a free will, but there's no argument to be had that man is anything other than, or less than, a free will

What are your own conclusions regarding how and why the "human condition" itself fits into a definitive understanding of existence?

I got no clue what you're askin'...so I'll take a guess and wing it (but I'll avoid bein' preachy): Reality is not a rudderless affair; there is a moral dimension; man is not just a hopped-up, turbo-charged, monkey

This to me is a classic example of the "general description intellectual contraption" that revolves around the assumption that "by definition" it is true because only your own definitions are allowed to be considered.

and -- to me -- the anti-free will position is a denial of what is apparent; liars deny free will cuz -- heaven forbid! -- they should be responsible for themselves, so they work hard to redefine man as appliance; nutjobs -- driven nutty by too much philosophy -- schizophrenically choose to be appliances

either way: it's for crap

But the words aren't connected to the world. To a particular context.

yeah, no...I'm not talkin' about some isolated thing, some quality or abstract: I'm talkin' about man...I'm talkin' about you and me and him and her...I'm talkin' about the nearly 8 billion agents on the planet

They merely presume that if Mary aborts her unborn fetus she is morally responsible because "by definition" -- your own -- she has free will.

oh, when mary aborts, for no other reason than she been inconvenienced, she's a friggin murderer

here's why...

that human life she offs isn't hers: lil fetus person belongs to himself

[promethean75]

"man is not just a hopped-up, turbo-charged, monkey"

Speak for yourself, bub.

[Belinda]

Determinsm is true. 'Free Will' is a religious doctrine which is made for the purpose of being able to blame individuals for their sins. Social control in other words.

So is there any way men can be free? There is no such thing as total freedom however a man can increase his range of available choices by learning about the world around him including other men's predictable behaviours, and his own biases and passions.

[Immanuel Can]

Determinsm is true. 'Free Will' is a religious doctrine which is made for the purpose of being able to blame individuals for their sins. Social control in other words.

You've confused at least four very different ideas in just the last sentence, B.

But if Determinism were true, then it wouldn't matter a jot who believed it was true, and no person could possibly believe anything other than what they do, in fact, believe.

Which is a thing that you, yourself, clearly do not believe. Because you're trying to convince people who, according to Determinism, can't change their minds anyway.