compatibilism

[Immanuel Can]

When Immanuel changes place from a swimming pool to a lecture room Immanuel is relatively different as to both time and place.

Nope. Same guy, new place and time.

And that's why you still call him IC. You sense it's true, as well.

[promethean75]

Are any of you guys Ted Sider style four-dimensionalists by chance?

[RCSaunders]

Every event that happened and will happen is a necessary event.

Then you cannot know anything, including that statement. All that you call knowing is just a collection of necessary events as meaningless as a the sounds of a babbling brook or dead trees falling in the woods. When you write, "Every event that happened and will happen is a necessary event," or anything else, those, according to your view, are just meaningless necessary events that happen. Your belief the statement you made actually means something is just an illusion, another meaningless event that had to happen.

The odd thing is, you really do not believe that. In real life, you get upset with people who do things you think are wrong, as though they actually had a choice in the matter. If you have children, I'm sure it would never occur to you to excuse your child's forgetting to flush the toilet, because it was just an event that had to happened. I doubt very much you would excuse the clerk who short-changed you on the grounds it was just an event that happened. You hold everyone responsible for what they do, including yourself, but that contradicts the view that what human beings do is just events that had to happen, doesn't it?

All that you call knowing is just a collection of necessary events as meaningless as a the sounds of a babbling brook or dead trees falling in the woods.

We create our meanings from phenomena.

What meanings? Are lightening strikes and volcanoes irrupting meanings? Since human activity is nothing more than physical events like lightening strikes and volcanoes, there is no, "meaning," and it's silly to say human beings create anything (implying they do something by intention) when whatever they do is just a big complex physical event.

I'm sure it would never occur to you to excuse your child's forgetting to flush the toilet, because it was just an event that had to happened. I doubt very much you would excuse the clerk who short-changed you on the grounds it was just an event that happened. You hold everyone responsible for what they do, including yourself,

One trains one's children without blaming them.

That is totally irrelevant to the point. It's the fact you expect you children to choose to do the right thing, else you would not train them. What good would training do anyone if they had no choice about what they did?

Responsible, free adults are responsible not because they have Free Will but because they participate in this world :

Why do you keep using that phrase, "free will?" There is no such thing and it does hot mean volition, which means anything a human being does consciously they must consciously choose to do, and nothing more.

If what one does is not consciously chosen, it is not participation. It is what a rock or a leave blowing in the wind does, just a physical event without meaning or purpose.

What normal man could not blame Putin for death and suffering in Ukraine , after all he knows well what he is doing ? No doubt there are causes of his wickedness. Putin has relinquished responsibility for the death and suffering he has caused, so we must presume his reason is dominated by an unfree, irresponsible idea, such as that he must at all costs be the new Tzar of a larger Russia.

You seem to have a problem sticking to a subject. What does, "judging," Putin have to do with the question of determinism and volition. If you were right, no one could be blamed for anything since they never choose anything they do. Someone like Putin, from your point of view, ought to be pitied rather than blamed, since whatever it is you think determines human behavior made him do all those horrible things and he had no choice about it.

[RCSaunders]

Compatibilism: Can free will and determinism co-exist?

That would be a confusion of terms. "Compatibilism," is the view that there is both determinism (of everything that is not living or conscious, the merely physical) but that living conscious organism determine their behavior within the context of physical determinism and is therefore volition is perfectly compatible with determinism.

It is not, "free will," an absurd theological concept. It is volition, which only means, everything a human being is conscious of doing they must consciously choose to do. Such choice is only possible in a universe that is physically determined.

[Belinda]

When Immanuel changes place from a swimming pool to a lecture room Immanuel is relatively different as to both time and place.

Nope. Same guy, new place and time.

And that's why you still call him IC. You sense it's true, as well.

Immanuel's body changes when he is swimming. In what way is Immanuel still the same guy as when he was asleep in bed? Why would you believe there is an unchangeable essence of Immanuel?

Belinda identifies Immanuel by his name on posts and by characteristic opinions. However these are not everlastingly true as Immanuel could change his user name and decide to become a Roman Catholic.

[Walker]

Walker wrote:

W: This is why mistakes are the necessity that flow from the premise: "in an ordered universe, every event is a necessary event," rather than any event, being a matter of choice.

Every event that happened and will happen is a necessary event. All of Men's errors and all of men's successes are necessary events, but only God knows which is which, error or success.

In Christian theology Jesus was sent to give us an idea of which choices are errors and which are successes.

A bodhisattva such as Jesus moves on the winds of ego-choiceless Samadhi that are shaped by the currents of a particular situation. Jesus’ teachings may have been a standard measure to aid generations in defining sin, but within Christianity, wasn’t Christ’s punishment a surrogacy for humanity? Thus the saying, Christ died for your sins.

[Immanuel Can]

Why would you believe there is an unchangeable essence of Immanuel?

Heh. You can't even keep your story straight here.

You can't call me "Immanuel" if there is nothing that keeps me being me.

You should have written, "Why would the person who was you yesterday have believed there is an unchangeable essence of whoever you are for a millisecond today?"

[iambiguous]

Compatibilism: Can free will and determinism co-exist?

That would be a confusion of terms. "Compatibilism," is the view that there is both determinism (of everything that is not living or conscious, the merely physical) but that living conscious organism determine their behavior within the context of physical determinism and is therefore volition is perfectly compatible with determinism.

It is not, "free will," an absurd theological concept. It is volition, which only means, everything a human being is conscious of doing they must consciously choose to do. Such choice is only possible in a universe that is physically determined.

Yes, and then those determinists who argue that this confusion itself is merely an inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality in the only possible world.

That the human brain is but more matter compelled to function in accordance with the laws of matter.

Then the part where a compatibilist explains to Mary that even though she was never able to not abort her fetus, she is still morally responsible for "choosing" to.

The compatibilists tell her she is morally responsible but the compatibilists themselves were never able not to tell her this.

[Belinda]

Walker wrote:

W: This is why mistakes are the necessity that flow from the premise: "in an ordered universe, every event is a necessary event," rather than any event, being a matter of choice.

Every event that happened and will happen is a necessary event. All of Men's errors and all of men's successes are necessary events, but only God knows which is which, error or success.

In Christian theology Jesus was sent to give us an idea of which choices are errors and which are successes.

A bodhisattva such as Jesus moves on the winds of ego-choiceless Samadhi that are shaped by the currents of a particular situation. Jesus’ teachings may have been a standard measure to aid generations in defining sin, but within Christianity, wasn’t Christ’s punishment a surrogacy for humanity? Thus the saying, Christ died for your sins.

Yes. But I don't have to buy the whole farm.

[promethean75]

"Thus the saying, Christ died for your sins."

Yeah but the gratitude we have for this is significantly lessened on account of the guy (Jesus) being immortal. It's like thanking Clark Kent for taking a bullet for you. He's superman. That bullet was nuthin. Not even a flesh wound.

[Belinda]

Why would you believe there is an unchangeable essence of Immanuel?

Heh. You can't even keep your story straight here.

You can't call me "Immanuel" if there is nothing that keeps me being me.

You should have written, "Why would the person who was you yesterday have believed there is an unchangeable essence of whoever you are for a millisecond today?"

Continuing use of user name Immanuel Can is not my choice.

There is no essential Immanuel Can. True, there is a personality attached to the label Immanuel Can however personalities can change.

[henry quirk]

Why would you believe there is an unchangeable essence of Immanuel?

Heh. You can't even keep your story straight here.

You can't call me "Immanuel" if there is nothing that keeps me being me.

You should have written, "Why would the person who was you yesterday have believed there is an unchangeable essence of whoever you are for a millisecond today?"

Continuing use of user name Immanuel Can is not my choice.

Sure it is. If you really thought Mannie was a different person from moment to moment, from circumstance to circumstance, from post to post, you'd not treat him as the consistent-across-a-stretch entity you obviously see him as. You call him IC and Immanuel and Immanuel Can becuz you know the guy you contested with yesterday, last week, last year, is the same person who'll post a response to you today, tomorrow, next week, etc.

You deny unchangeable essence while behavin' and respondin' as though Mannie is one.

[Belinda]

Heh. You can't even keep your story straight here.

You can't call me "Immanuel" if there is nothing that keeps me being me.

You should have written, "Why would the person who was you yesterday have believed there is an unchangeable essence of whoever you are for a millisecond today?"

Continuing use of user name Immanuel Can is not my choice.

Sure it is. If you really thought Mannie was a different person from moment to moment, from circumstance to circumstance, from post to post, you'd not treat him as the consistent-across-a-stretch entity you obviously see him as. You call him IC and Immanuel and Immanuel Can becuz you know the guy you contested with yesterday, last week, last year, is the same person who'll post a response to you today, tomorrow, next week, etc.

You deny unchangeable essence while behavin' and respondin' as though Mannie is one.

I behave as though Immanuel has a permanent essence of Immanuel but I can't reasonably repeat all this spiel about essences not existing every time I answer someone's post.

[henry quirk]

Continuing use of user name Immanuel Can is not my choice.

Sure it is. If you really thought Mannie was a different person from moment to moment, from circumstance to circumstance, from post to post, you'd not treat him as the consistent-across-a-stretch entity you obviously see him as. You call him IC and Immanuel and Immanuel Can becuz you know the guy you contested with yesterday, last week, last year, is the same person who'll post a response to you today, tomorrow, next week, etc.

You deny unchangeable essence while behavin' and respondin' as though Mannie is one.

I behave as though Immanuel has a permanent essence of Immanuel but I can't reasonably repeat all this spiel about essences not existing every time I answer someone's post.

You wouldn't have to repeat the spiel. If you legitimately believe Mannie is literally a different person in every instance you'd treat him as a different person in every encounter.

You don't.

You treat him as the same person from encounter to encounter just as you treat me as the same person, the same Henry, from encounter to encounter. And the way you treat Mannie differs from how you treat me.

So: we can say, with confidence, you know Mannie is Mannie as an enduring, singular, being and you treat him consistently, over time, as that enduring, singular, being. And we can say, with confidence, you know I am a different enduring, singular, being who you treat consistently, and differently from Mannie, over time.

[Immanuel Can]

Why would you believe there is an unchangeable essence of Immanuel?

Heh. You can't even keep your story straight here.

You can't call me "Immanuel" if there is nothing that keeps me being me.

You should have written, "Why would the person who was you yesterday have believed there is an unchangeable essence of whoever you are for a millisecond today?"

Continuing use of user name Immanuel Can is not my choice.

Yes, it is. Nobody can make you use my name.

But as Henry says, the use of it betrays you think you are talking to the same person you were talking to yesterday.