From ILP:
Ben JS wrote: iambiguous wrote:Okay, we can talk, the rock and the meteor cannot. But if what we say is the only possible thing that our material brains were ever able to compel us to say in the only possible reality in the only possible world? What "for all practical purposes" difference does that make?
Speaking with a person is expected to result in different reactions than speaking with a rock.
And if what we "expect" is no less an inherent component of a wholly determined "I" wholly in sync with the laws of nature?
Ben JS wrote: If we want to affect / influence a person, [i.e. change their percieved trajectory from what we currently predict they will do, in the absence of our interaction], speaking is a viable approach.
When one acts, it is to influence the direction of the future. An attempt to actualise the contents of one's will.
Same thing. Back to Schopenhauer: "A man can do what he wants. A man however, cannot want what he wants." Thinking, feeling, saying, doing. It's all the same to nature. That rocks can't do any of these things at all does not mean that we do them autonomously.
We simply do not yet grasp how matter evolved into life, life into minds.
Again, unless someone has grasped it and I am simply not cognizant of that argument/demonstration yet.
Instead, from my frame of mind, we have those here like you who "just know" that...
Ben JS wrote: Even if it's completely determined, which I believe, we still have a will - we still have incentives, goals and drive. Our will is to act in accord with our will, regardless of whether it's determined or not. I'll go out on a limb here and say there's lots of determinists that don't want earth to be hit by that meteor - and if they predict a meteor is a risk, they will be incentivized to develop a strategy to affect the meteor, and ideally, it wouldn't entail asking the meteor questions.
We can will what we do, but can we will what we will?
We're all stuck here given both "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule".
When it comes to the human brain...
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.
Or is that not applicable to you?
Still, as is my wont, let's go back to Mary above.
Given your own understanding of determinism...human wills, human wants, human expectations, etc.,...is her abortion on par with, say, a huge asteroid striking Earth and wiping out the human species?
Mary can think, feel, say and do things. But only those things that her brain compels her to think, feel, say and do. She aborts her fetus and it is gone. It was never able to be otherwise. The asteroid can do none of those things but there is no stopping it in turn from smashing into Earth. It does so and all of us are gone.
What "for all practical purpose" is the difference?
Though, as always, I'm the first to admit that I am simply not understanding your point. Or the point of nature. If it has a point at all.
