compatibilism

[BigMike]

The core of the dispute is whether or not scientists, or BigMike as scientist, believes nature is there to be discovered, or alternatively believe nature is possible but it's more likely to be a construct.

Are you saying that the dispute is between those who believe nature, the physical universe, is real and those who believe it is a fantasy, a mental construct?

If you delete ' a fantasy' then Yes that is what I am saying.

But don't you find it incredible that we all create the same mental construct? We both see the same movie if I take you to the movies, don't we? Do you find that odd?

[Age]

Nope. I am claiming that bodies can create fields. So, perhaps some people's bodies can move things at a distance via a field we haven't discovered yet. IOW there is no way to rule out telekinises based on physicalist substance monism.

I agree.

Telekinesis could be checked tomorrow.
But, as you say, it would be the body that would act on matter at a distance, not the mind itself.

That is, for example, the brain could emit waves that affect the behavior of objects.

What is it that you guys do not understand? Every force field is caused by physical matter and can only interact with it. A non-physical "mind" is incapable of generating force fields.

Is there a non-physical mind?

If yes, then where and what is 'it', EXACTLY?

But if no, then why write like there is one?

We do not live in a fantasy world where things appear simply because we wish for them.

But ALL human being made 'things' appear because they were once simply wished for

On the other hand, already now the interaction between objects, and therefore also with the body, takes place via electromagnetic fields.

That's false. Your body also sets up a gravitational field.

[Age]

the concept of infinity is like an intuitive antinomy of thought i think. in math we know potential infinites as real open series, but actual infinites of anything are inconceivable... yet we get caught in a metaphysical infinite regress of causes if we posit that energy and matter are finite and at some point in the past, created by a prima causa that iz, itself, eternal or 'infinite' in some attribute.

Contrary to what you think or BELIEVE here infinity of something is VERY conceivable.

so being parsimonious we suggest that the metaphysical problem might be avoidable if we can imagine a universe-system that didn't need to be created to exist, and had always existed, and will always exist, somehow.

at this point, such a hypothesis is no more reaching and fantastic than a metaphysical theory of God used to explain the same phenomena in question. the problem of uncaused self-caused first causes and the problem of the intellectual antinomy of infinity. either way we go we end up at an inconceivability.

For 'you' maybe, but NOT for 'I', AT ALL.

We're inna helluva situation here, philosophers.

Discuss.

Discuss 'what', EXACTLY?

What is IRREFUTABLE and ACTUALLY True is HERE, for ALL to just LOOK AT and SEE.

[Age]

"Just one little problem with that...science."

Yeah yeah I read it. Scientific shmientific.

Do sumthin for me. Google the search terms 'the big bang is wrong' and tell me how many pages of results you get. G'head.

A $1,000,000 Nobel Prize in Physics is awaiting you. All you have to do is justify your claim.

To justify that the big bang is NOT the beginning of the Universe is about one of the simplest things to do.

Oh, and by the way, ANY one else can have that so-called 'prize'. I certainly do NOT want it.

[Age]

As if new forces can never be found in the future...

Of course, no one can rule out the possibility that new forces will be discovered in the future. The problem is, as Newton pointed out, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In fact, physicists no longer like to use the word "force" preferring to call it what it is: an interaction. This is what makes the conservation laws of physics work so perfectly: energy, momentum, and the other conserved properties are exchanged through interaction. The object "exerting the force" transfers some of its moment and energy to another object; no energy or momentum is created or destroyed, only transferred.
Your "free will" must transfer momentum to an atom in your brain in order for it to move this way instead of that. That means your "free will" must have some momentum in the first place, which means it must be physical. As a result, it cannot be free. Free will is merely a mirage.

Here is another example of the definition being used for the 'free will' term or phrase just being Wrong, and thus adding to the CONFUSION held by 'you', posters, here.

[BigMike]

As if new forces can never be found in the future...

Of course, no one can rule out the possibility that new forces will be discovered in the future. The problem is, as Newton pointed out, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In fact, physicists no longer like to use the word "force" preferring to call it what it is: an interaction. This is what makes the conservation laws of physics work so perfectly: energy, momentum, and the other conserved properties are exchanged through interaction. The object "exerting the force" transfers some of its moment and energy to another object; no energy or momentum is created or destroyed, only transferred.
Your "free will" must transfer momentum to an atom in your brain in order for it to move this way instead of that. That means your "free will" must have some momentum in the first place, which means it must be physical. As a result, it cannot be free. Free will is merely a mirage.

Here is another example of the definition being used for the 'free will' term or phrase just being Wrong, and thus adding to the CONFUSION held by 'you', posters, here.

I am the only one who provides supporting evidence for the claims I make. Others, like bobmax and Age, just hurl insults because they have no sensible arguments to offer.

[Age]

I am the only one who provides supporting evidence for the claims I make.

Where is your so-called 'supporting evidence' that 'free will' as defined in the way, which FITS IN PERFECTLY with absolutely EVERYTHING ELSE, is a mirage?

Others, like Bobmax, resort to simply insulting their opponents in order to defend their own empty and unfounded, and dare I say, stupid claims.

And the claim that 'free will is a mirage' is NOT stupid at all correct?

[BigMike]

I am the only one who provides supporting evidence for the claims I make.

Where is your so-called 'supporting evidence' that 'free will' as defined in the way, which FITS IN PERFECTLY with absolutely EVERYTHING ELSE, is a mirage?

Others, like Bobmax, resort to simply insulting their opponents in order to defend their own empty and unfounded, and dare I say, stupid claims.

And the claim that 'free will is a mirage' is NOT stupid at all correct?

Clearly, the ability to read and comprehend is a prerequisite.

[Age]

Of course, no one can rule out the possibility that new forces will be discovered in the future. The problem is, as Newton pointed out, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In fact, physicists no longer like to use the word "force" preferring to call it what it is: an interaction. This is what makes the conservation laws of physics work so perfectly: energy, momentum, and the other conserved properties are exchanged through interaction. The object "exerting the force" transfers some of its moment and energy to another object; no energy or momentum is created or destroyed, only transferred.
Your "free will" must transfer momentum to an atom in your brain in order for it to move this way instead of that. That means your "free will" must have some momentum in the first place, which means it must be physical. As a result, it cannot be free. Free will is merely a mirage.

Here is another example of the definition being used for the 'free will' term or phrase just being Wrong, and thus adding to the CONFUSION held by 'you', posters, here.

I am the only one who provides supporting evidence for the claims I make. Others, like bobmax and Age, just hurl insults because they have no sensible arguments to offer.

LOL

Talk about TWISTING and DISTORTING things around here.

I asked you SPECIFICALLY to provide supporting evidence for YOUR CLAIMS, but you gave NONE.

I have also NEVER 'hurled an insult' here.You just made this OTHER unsupported claim to 'try to' DEFLECT AWAY from the Fact that you have ACTUALLY NOT provided supporting evidence for all of your claims here.

[Age]

I am the only one who provides supporting evidence for the claims I make.

Where is your so-called 'supporting evidence' that 'free will' as defined in the way, which FITS IN PERFECTLY with absolutely EVERYTHING ELSE, is a mirage?

Others, like Bobmax, resort to simply insulting their opponents in order to defend their own empty and unfounded, and dare I say, stupid claims.

And the claim that 'free will is a mirage' is NOT stupid at all correct?

Clearly, the ability to read and comprehend is a prerequisite.

ONCE MORE absolutely NO supporting evidence is provided by you here.

[bobmax]

I am the only one who provides supporting evidence for the claims I make. Others, like Bobmax, resort to simply insulting their opponents in order to defend their own empty and unfounded, and dare I say, stupid claims.

The core of the dispute is whether or not scientists, or BigMike as scientist, believes nature is there to be discovered, or alternatively believe nature is possible but it's more likely to be a construct.

It is worse than that.

Because there is a hallucination that confuses the model with reality. Inventing models is useful, indispensable, but it is never reality!

Instead, there is the disastrous belief that formulas, particles, forces are reality itself.

We are even convinced that there really is a world of numbers!
Which are there to be used.

In this way their elaboration is considered possible even though they are infinite.
Without realizing the absolute absurdity of it all.
This not realizing it is possible because one is subjected to nihilism.

[Belinda]

Are you saying that the dispute is between those who believe nature, the physical universe, is real and those who believe it is a fantasy, a mental construct?

If you delete ' a fantasy' then Yes that is what I am saying.

But don't you find it incredible that we all create the same mental construct? We both see the same movie if I take you to the movies, don't we? Do you find that odd?

I do find it odd that we all create the same mental construct. However the mental construct we create is more than scientific predictions, it's also more, and significantly more than scientific predictions. We create the standards for scientific predictions. Truth is coherence of ideas ie it's epistemic. Knowledge is correspondence with facts i.e. knowledge too is epistemic.

[iambiguous]

Are you going to lock up a serial killer for doing what he did?

If yes, then you are holding him responsible for his acts.

Why would you treat Mary any differently? You hold her responsible for her acts as well.

You again!

Really, you are either making a truly important point here that I -- click -- keep missing or you are hopelessly deluded.

In a determined universe as some understand it, a serial killer could never not be a serial killer any more than the authorities could never not lock him up.

NOTHING that any of us think, feel, say and do is not fated/destined to unfold in the only possible reality in the only possible world.

That includes Mary aborting Jane and the free will folks and the compatibilists holding her morally responsible for doing so.

That includes me typing these words in my here and now and you reading them in yours.

If it's matter it follows the laws of matter.

Then back to the part, however, where, sure, the human brain may well be like no other matter there has ever been.

Thank God?

In the interim, I'm sticking with the part where neither you nor I nor anyone else here can grasp this...

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

...and actually be able to pin down, going all the way back to the explanation for existence itself, how the human condition itself fits into existence ontologically. And teleologically?

Go ahead, though, give it a shot.

What does this have to do with how responsibility is assigned in a situation?

Or why responsibility is assigned?

Do you understand why a serial killer goes to jail? And why that happens whether we are talking about determinism or free-will? Why he can't get a "Get Out of Jail Free" card?

Well, if you believe that everything that we think, feel, say and do is wholly compelled by material brains wholly in sync with the laws of matter, then anything that has to do with anything at all unfolds in the only possible reality. Responsibility is assigned only as it ever could have been assigned. And why it's assigned is because it never could not have been assigned other than as it must be.

Do you understand why a serial killer goes to jail? And why that happens whether we are talking about determinism or free-will? Why he can't get a "Get Out of Jail Free" card?

Do you understand that anything that either one of us purports to understand here is an understanding that could never have not been if the assumptions of the particularly hardcore determinists are true.

Only back to this:

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

In other words, that, as with the free will libertarians, the hardcore determinists seem to have no capacity to demonstrate that what they believe is in fact the whole truth going back to an explanation for existence itself.

[phyllo]

Well, if you believe that everything that we think, feel, say and do is wholly compelled by material brains wholly in sync with the laws of matter, then anything that has to do with anything at all unfolds in the only possible reality. Responsibility is assigned only as it ever could have been assigned. And why it's assigned is because it never could not have been assigned other than as it must be.

Do you understand why a serial killer goes to jail? And why that happens whether we are talking about determinism or free-will? Why he can't get a "Get Out of Jail Free" card?

Do you understand that anything that either one of us purports to understand here is an understanding that could never have not been if the assumptions of the particularly hardcore determinists are true.

Only back to this:

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

In other words, that, as with the free will libertarians, the hardcore determinists seem to have no capacity to demonstrate that what they believe is in fact the whole truth going back to an explanation for existence itself.

There's nothing to discuss here.

Maybe it's me and our history at ILP but I doubt it.

I will see how you respond to IWP before making any final assessment.

[BigMike]

There's nothing to discuss here.

Those people are destroying this forum, phyllo