compatibilism

[iambiguous]

Would anyone else care to demonstrate to me why I ought to think that winning/losing is irrelevant?

Two nights ago, you had a dream where you won an event and got all that comes from winning it.

Last night you had the same dream where you lost the event and got none of it.

So, here, what's the difference between winning and losing?

Though, sure, some will insist when the wide-awake brain makes you a winner or a loser that is...different.

Dreams only happen in your head.

Reality happens outside your head as well. There are tangible results and not just for you.

Come on, if everything that unfolds in your head unfolds only because the human brain is chenically and neurologically in sync with the laws of matter, do you think it matters to nature whether you are sound asleep or wide awake?

Again, I'm not arguing that there isn't a difference -- God or No God -- only that scientists, philosophers and theologians have yet to pin that down unequivocally.

Though, sure, I'll continue to tune in to Nova and the Science Channel [compelled or not] waiting for the segment that finally pins it down.

Imagine torturing your enemies. It may make you feel good or it may make you feel bad.

But it's very different from actually torturing your enemies.

It certainly seems to be. But then everything that seems to be may well be embedded in the psychological illusion of free will.

And there is still the part where flannel jesus dreams of tormenting me only to wake up and realize that it was all literally just in his head.

And the part where given any number of brain afflictions we find ourselves doing things on automatic pilot that we would never have freely chosen to do "in our right minds". Mind and matter can become nothing short of, well, mind-boggling.

Let me up the ante. A child is sexually assaulted. Since it's "predetermined", it's irrelevant whether the child was assaulted or not.

Again, that's the argument that does up the ante. Or you can ask, "if the Holocaust could never have not happened are the Nazis really morally responsible for pursuing it, for acting on it, for killing millions and millions? And if you say they are, is that just one more example of the only possible world unfolding in the only possible way?"

Moral responsibility and relevance/irrelevance are not the same thing.

I'm not even talking about moral responsibility at this point.

Of course they are the same thing if you were never able to freely opt to conclude otherwise.

And I always get back around to moral responsibility, don't I? After all, in regard to the age-old free will/determinism/compatibilism debate [philosophical or otherwise], what aspect of human interactions can possibly be more important?

[iambiguous]

I'm trembling. When I came to a philosophy forum, the last thing I expected to see was people who believe different things than me!

Click.

Note to the true moral and political objectivists among us:

Explain to him that in fact you really do divide the world up between those who are "one of us" [the good guys, the smart guys] and those who are "one of them" [the bad guys, the dumb guys].

He seems convinced that you are all just a figment of my imagination.

On the contrary, start here: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

Oh, so THAT'S what an objectivist is.

And here you are, dividing the world between objectivists and everyone else. Objectivists are to be feared. They're dangerous, they're one of them. The bad guys. (Maybe the dumb guys too, who knows?)

Is this another axis along which you are also an objectivist? Have you found a new dimension of hypocrisy?

I don't read that forum btw. I think you need an account to see everything, and I had an account at one point but I've lost the password and don't feel like signing up for a new one. Do you think I should?

Nature to Flannel Jesus:

Pick one:

1] sounds like a personal problem
2] sounds like a personal problem
3] sounds like a personal problem
4] all of the above



Nature to iambiguous:

Click.

Go ahead. This time, he or she is all yours.

Look, FJ, you obviously have nothing but contempt for me here. So, stop confirming that over and again and stick instead with those here who will discuss compatibilism as a serious philosopher would.

Start a new thread. I promise not to click on it. Not even once.

[iambiguous]

With you though there is a measure of hostility that seems to point in another direction altogether. I have my suspicions as to what is behind it, but I suspect that revealing that further would only rile you all the more.

You're behind it mate. The first interaction about compatibilism I had with you, you asked me to explain the thought process to you, so I was trying to work through that in a step by step manner, and instead of engaging with me and my explanation you immediately started speaking over me and ignoring everything I was saying. You're behind it when you make up nonsense about people being objectivists because they believe things -- I provided quotes on the previous page of this thread to give context for that, you're apparently playing stupid on that. You're behind it when you make out that, because I have some particular belief I'm arguing for, that makes me in some way dangerous.

You have toxic communication patterns, and when people respond with toxicity back to you you act stupid about it. You're behind it.

Nature to iambiguous:

Actually, I'm behind it.

And him too.

[iambiguous]

Again, I challenge you -- dare you -- to note where I have ever posted anything that argues that anyone who has any belief at all makes them an objectivist.

Start with this post: viewtopic.php?p=628543#p628543

And read the following two posts I made after it.

Note to others:

Click.

Please pinpoint specifically where I assert that anyone who has any belief at all makes them an objectivist. An objectivist in the sense that they believe that all others are obligated to believe what they do.

That, in my view, can only be applicable in a wholly determined universe such that all of our beliefs are entirely in sync objectively with the laws of matter.

[Flannel Jesus]

Look, FJ, you obviously have nothing but contempt for me here. So, stop confirming that over and again and stick instead with those here who will discuss compatibilism as a serious philosopher would.

I don't have contempt for you, I sorta like you. I have some contempt for the way you've chosen to conduct yourself in these conversations though. Instead of engaging people's ideas, you call them objectivists based on the most flimsy criteria and you make no effort whatsoever to clarify yourself.

Clarity is of a really high importance to me. If you're discussing something in good faith, and you believe the other person has misunderstood you, it should be your immediate concern to clear up that misunderstanding immediately. You don't seem to have the policy. In fact you seem to enjoy the games that can come out of ambiguity.

I guess you chose your username for a reason after all...

[Flannel Jesus]

Please pinpoint specifically where I assert that anyone who has any belief at all makes them an objectivist. An objectivist in the sense that they believe that all others are obligated to believe what they do.

You didn't clarify that bit I bolded in the conversation, in any of the opportunities you had. If you read the places I quoted you, you didn't say anything about this obligation.

Because of course you didn't. Because you can't find anything where I implied I believe in such an obligation.

Why has it taken you this long to clarify the "obligation" aspect of your use of objectivism?

From my own subjective, rooted existentially in dasein point of view, if you believe it is possible to be in sync with the real you and, further, the real you is able to grasp the most rational and virtuous manner in which to resolve a moral conflict like abortion, then, "in my own personal opinion", you are an objectivist.

That doesn't have anything about obligation, that's just about beliefs.

...being a moral objectivist as I understand it revolves around someone who is convinced that they are in sync with their "true self" -- their soul -- in sync further with the "right thing to do".
Or the right way to understand something.

Someone who thinks they have the right way to understand something, again, says nothing about any obligation of others. That's just a belief.

You really dropped the ball here. You're blaming me but it's your own fault for choosing to misuse a word and refuse to clarify at numerous opportunities.

If you want to drown your own posts in a unique vocabulary, you'd really benefit from the ability to clearly define your terms. You haven't done that here. Hence why everyone thinks you mean something different by "objectivist" than what you actually mean.

[Iwannaplato]

From my own subjective, rooted existentially in dasein point of view, if you believe it is possible to be in sync with the real you and, further, the real you is able to grasp the most rational and virtuous manner in which to resolve a moral conflict like abortion, then, "in my own personal opinion", you are an objectivist.

That doesn't have anything about obligation, that's just about beliefs.

He is so certain of his 'personal opinion, which he judges as rooted existentially in dasein point of view, that he's happy to say you are the imply/say you are the same as Nazis, Gulag makers, etc. How is that different from what he calls objectivists.

He qualifies his opinion in his fancy as serious philosopher ways. But none of these qualifications give him pause from associating you with people he thinks are evil.

What does all this qualification actually do? Nothing.

And nowhere does he justify that the people he labels as objectivists deserve in any way to be associated with monsters.

It's like when people respond to vegetarians by saying they are like Hitler, since he was one.

Or it would be like blaming dualists for the atrocities of, say, Crusaders who were also dualists.

Or blaming monists (like materialists and physicalists) for the excesses of Stalin, since he was a monist.

It's lazy ass philosophy, not merely offensive.

He can't manage to see the irony of attacking objectivists by saying they are a threat to people who believe in democracy and the rule of law. IOW objectivists are a threat to objectivists. Hell, many pacifists are objectivists. And so on.

Prepare for a conversation that slides around with you not quite being responded to in posts that are meant to appear to.

[Flannel Jesus]

And nowhere does he justify that the people he labels as objectivists deserve in any way to be associated with monsters.

It's like when people respond to vegetarians by saying they are like Hitler, since he was one.

Or it would be like blaming dualists for the atrocities of, say, Crusaders who were also dualists.

Or blaming monists (like materialists and physicalists) for the excesses of Stalin, since he was a monist.

It's lazy ass philosophy, not merely offensive.

I've had this same train of thought as well. Like, Nazis were objectivists and that's why objectivists are dangerous? Nazis also brushed their teeth, is anyone with a tooth brush dangerous?

I don't find it offensive so much as dumbfounding. Conversing with biggy in this thread feels like some absurdist episode of the Twilight zone.

I'm sure he thinks his interactions have been absolutely flawless though, and he's contributed nothing at all to the pointless turn this thread has taken. No, it's completely normal to start talking about objectivist Nazis as soon as someone expresses some beliefs about compatibilism...

I'd really like to see some introspection from him. I know it's a lot to ask, but just for him to go back and read the interactions he's had with a specific focus on the question, "why do people think I'm using the word objectivist in this way?" If there's an ounce of philosophical rigor in him, he'll come back and say "you know what guys, I totally see that my words led you to that understanding. That's my bad." We could move forward if he did that. I'm gonna find it hard to move forward through the gaslighting though.

[Iwannaplato]

I've had this same train of thought as well. Like, Nazis were objectivists and that's why objectivists are dangerous? Nazis also brushed their teeth, is anyone with a tooth brush dangerous?

[Or blaming him for the behavior of psychopath nihilists. He's aware of them, and points out they exist, but he doesn't seem to blame himself for them or consider his position as deserving to be compared to theirs.[/quote]

I don't find it offensive so much as dumbfounding. Conversing with biggy in this thread feels like some absurdist episode of the Twilight zone.

I think it's like dreams where you have to catch connecting subway trains, but the corridors betweens trains never lead to the right other train or you find the train you are on is going in the wrong direction. Always almost improving getting to the right station but never getting them. A waiting for Godot. Ok, yeah, Twilight Zone or Kafka of the Trial.

I'm sure he thinks his interactions have been absolutely flawless though, and he's contributed nothing at all to the pointless turn this thread has taken. No, it's completely normal to start talking about objectivist Nazis as soon as someone expresses some beliefs about compatibilism...

He needs that term. Because it sounds like it represents a position, but you can see in his definitions...when they finally are clarified ...that it has to do with attitudes (often presumed by him). It's not thinking you are being objective or thinking that one can be. It's no believing Ayn Rand type beliefs. It feeling that others are oligated to believe you, whatever the hell that means.

If you don't have his odd category and this term, his whole smearing of people for being like Nazis goes out of the window. You can't batch people in the way he wants to batch people without making an idiosyncratic use of that term.

I'd really like to see some introspection from him. I know it's a lot to ask, but just for him to go back and read the interactions he's had with a specific focus on the question, "why do people think I'm using the word objectivist in this way?

Oh, it's beyond that. If he used the johnny-come-lately definition (in this discussion earlier) it would be clear he's projecting the category on them.

" If there's an ounce of philosophical rigor in him, he'll come back and say "you know what guys, I totally see that my words led you to that understanding. That's my bad." We could move forward if he did that. I'm gonna find it hard to move forward through the gaslighting though.

I think the ambiguity suits him or better put, his purposes.

He gets to label people who don't agree with him and are not ,or claim not to be, fractured and fragmented as sinners.

[iambiguous]

Nobody cares, because it's not relevant. It's just some random nonsense you brought into the thread that nobody else cares about. The conversation was not about objectivists, Nazis or Taliban until you brought them up. Nobody cares about your nonsense.

Stop crying about objectivists. If you're so scared of other people believing different stuff from you then you're better off without an account on any philosophy forum or social media. You're much too fragile to be on the internet.

Get your parents to install parental controls or something

Note to others:

Click.

I've explained what I think is relevant here...and why I think that it is relevant.

Decide for yourself then if, in Stooge mode, Flannel Jesus continues to make a fool out of himself here with me.

After all, if it doesn't embarrass him to keep posting his declamatory "it's all about iambiguous" personal attacks, it doesn't embarrass me to suggest that it ought to.

Everyone who is keeping up with this thread is in the same boat I am. Nobody is on board with your Nazi crap.

Note to nature: cockadoodledoo

Then -- click -- why on earth do they keep reading and then responding to my posts?

Perhaps because their brains compel them to?

Come on, stop bitching about me and start your own thread. Be done with me once and for all.

[Agent Smith]

Pax Mundi?! Bah! Give me a real problem to solve!

[iambiguous]

Everyone who is keeping up with this thread is in the same boat I am. Nobody is on board with your Nazi crap.

Note to nature: cockadoodledoo

The poor man, and I would guess it is a man, doesn't seem to realize that calling most people in a discussion objectivists and then associating them with people he hates: Hitler, Nazis, Stalinists and the Taliban
is posting all about them.
When people respond to this idiocy and what he is, therefore, doing in the thread, other people are writing 'all about him.'
It's a lovely passive aggressive game.

Again, sometimes he'll sustain a substantive exchange with me that is relatively civil and respectful of my intelligence. Though, at others times [like here], when egged on by the likes of FJ, he configures into Stooge mode and yammers on and on about my "idiocy".

But what is of particular interest to me here is not so much what either of them say about me in Stooge mode but why they allow themselves to shamelessly sink down into it as they do here.

And -- click -- based on my many, many experiences with others just like them down through the years, I suspect it revolves by and large around their capacity to recognize that if my own "fractured and fragmented" frame of mind is reasonable in regard to value judgments in a No God world, what might become of their own precious Self if, as with me, their "I" begins to crumple?

[Flannel Jesus]

Biggy: you're all Nazis!

So-called Nazis: you're playing a dumb game and nobody else wants to play it

Biggy: I see that I have won, and your "I" is beginning to crumple!

Iwanna, I feel like biggy is having some sort of parallel conversation in bizarro land, where the above conversation actually makes sense. Man thinks he can cause our "I"s to crumple, whatever that means in this context, just by calling us Nazis ... ?

[Flannel Jesus]

If my "I" did crumple, however, I'd actually be thankful for that! What a fantastic experience that could be.

He would have to say something meaningful to cause that though.

[iambiguous]

Now, in terms of determinism and free will. If determinism is the case, the obviously he can't help (so far) but repeat this pattern. He might learn from what other people write about his behavior and strange claims and change the pattern. This change is of course also determined (in that universe that is determined). But it does indicate something more about him. Evern when getting feedback from a number of sources, he does not change or admit anything. Perhaps, if one believes in determinism, one would have more sympathy: stuff in his past and genetics leads to this kind of behavior. But he's still the guy who acts like this and of course other people are determined to pointing out the pattern and disliking it and perhaps ignoring his posts and so on at least for a while.

That's the way it is if -- click -- his own rendition of determinism [and his own rendition of my rendition of determinism] is correct. Others, however, argue that even in posting this, he was just one more of nature's dominos toppling over onto me on cue given the laws of matter sustaining the only possible material world there could ever have been.

Well, given what he is still in the dark about in regard 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.

Moving on...

If it's a free will world: well, he is not compelled to have this pattern. He is somehow freely choosing it. Perhaps because of factors in his past, I guess, or perhaps not. I guess we could conceivably hold him more responsible, but the pattern says less about him. People would not have essence the way they have in a determined universe. Again people who dislike the idiocy of general insults may well respond in posts about his behavior. Though here they would be somehow freer to compliment ideas (without irony) that make no sense or... I still have trouble with what this would all mean. But I suppose one might be more optimistic someone would change. or make different decisions next time.

So, in a free will world as he understands it, I would still be posting idiotic insults and calling anyone who believes anything at all an objectivist, but then there's the possibility that if I finally come around to thinking about all this as, say, he and FJ do, I could then opt not to be an idiot.

I can't really see how my behavior would change if tomorrow I was told one of the other was the case. I suppose once in a while I would listen to long songs that I can't stand. But I am not sure, beyond experimentation, why I would. Unless free will extends to not simply being free to act, but also free to react/experience differently.

How about you?

If, tomorrow, God or scientists or philosophers establish that you are in fact free to think and feel and say and do things of your own volition, would you think twice about, say, aborting a baby or becoming a Nazi and plotting the next Final Solution?

And, freely, of your own volition, how would you respond to the arguments I make on this thread -- https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529 -- given a particular context?

It should be added that constructions like...
He is compelled to associate people who believe things with Nazis.
...don't make sense.
There is no separate 'he' to be compelled. The desires and goals and fears (etc.) in him are part of what leads to his doing things. If it were only external causes, such a construction might make sense, but it is internal ones as well.

No -- click -- it should be added that it is simply preposterous -- idiotic? -- that I am equating people who believe things with Nazis.

Do you believe that 1 + 1 = 2? You're a Nazi.
Do you believe the planet Earth has a Moon? You're a Nazi.
Do you believe water is composed of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen? You're as Nazi.
Do you believe that Joe Biden is president of the United States? You're a Nazi?
Do you believe that you are reading these words? You're a Nazi.

And to nature and the laws of matter where does external end and internal begin?