compatibilism

[Iwannaplato]

The full line: Yeah, that path was determined. I would not cut anything differently. I thought that it was the best cut to make at that time and place

The full line, as you call it, is even srtronger.

I would not cut anything differently.

Despite what phy intended: that passage can be taken as libertarian free will, as agent causation.

Yeah, I really don't see a libertarian free will person saying 'that path was determined.'

It was utterly caused by the internal and external causes.

No. It, the clearing and the resultant path, was caused by a person, an agent, a free will.

You wanna say I'm misinterpreting, fine. I say I offer a different take.

I understand your position on the matter - or how you label it, in any case. And I understand Phyllo's.

And of course context plays a role in communication. But that's icing on the determinist cake of that quote.

[iambiguous]

I'm giving him/her a change to scrap the huffing and puffing -- the Stooge Stuff -- and actually explore Sam Harris's view here in a substantive manner.

Instead...grammar!!!

Not just grammar. Meaning. This sentence structure you use so frequently doesn't have meaning for other people, other than you. You know what you mean by it, because you are you, but we don't know what you mean by it, because it's not a complete thought.

Then what he wants or does not want and Schopenhauer's assessment of that.

What do you mean "then what he wants"? "Then <noun>" isn't a sentence. It doesn't have meaning.

Then apple. Then banana. Then strawberry. Then lemongrass.

What about it? What about apple, banana, strawberry, lemongrass? Nobody knows, because "then apple" isn't a complete thought, it's just a noun preceded by the word "then".

It's not just grammar. It's meaning. I'm trying to encourage you to write sentences that mean things. "Then apples" isn't a meaningful (or complete) sentence.

Click.

Seriously, is he/she just jerking us around here?

[Flannel Jesus]

Click.

Seriously, is he/she just jerking us around here?

No, not jerking you around. I'm telling you with complete honesty, when you say "Then x" as a standalone sentence, it doesn't work. Perhaps you never had an English teacher marking your essays in red when you were a child, so you missed out on some vital feedback. I wouldn't have been able to get away with writing sentences like that in the 3rd grade, so I learned early to write sentences with meaning. Can you learn?

[iambiguous]

WTF

Indeed, "what the fuck?" is often my own reaction to you here. One way or another you believe what you do about free will. One way or another you believe what you do about objective morality. One way of another you believe what you do about God.

But how exactly are they all intertwined when confronting an issue like Mary aborting Jane...given your own understanding of compatibilism and moral responsibility.

I go out of my way to stay on topic.

To leave the god shit out when I'm not talking about god shit.
To leave out the objective/subjective shit.

And still, someone can't focus.

Click.

On topic?

Well, "on topic" for me [on this thread] revolves around discussing how we can be both compelled by brains wholly in sync with the laws of nature to do only what we are never able not to do, and yet still be held morally responsible for doing it.

Unless, again, those who do hold us morally responsible do so only because they were never themselves free to opt otherwise.

And you either do connect God and religion to a soul that was installed with free will or you don't. And most that do, embed moral Commandments in Scripture said to be the "word of God".

Is this you or not?

After all, at least a God, the God, my God is one possible explanation.

In fact, where things get truly problematic is when we take God out of the picture. No God and "somehow" nature itself managed to evolve into brains actually able to ponder the evolution of matter into human brains.

Now, that's spooky.

[henry quirk]

Alluding to the difference without talking about the difference isn't useful.

What I alluded to is what I assumed was obvious. The compatibilist sez free will is reconcilable with necessitarianism. I believe he is wrong and that makes the difference.

[henry quirk]

I understand your position on the matter

I'll take this and leave the rest.

[phyllo]

Here is another ...

If cutting a path in the jungle is an example of libertarian free-will, then do ants, jaguars, boars also have libertarian free-will when they make a path in the jungle?

How about beavers building dams. Or birds building nests? Or termites?

[Iwannaplato]

Here is another ...

If cutting a path in the jungle is an example of libertarian free-will, then do ants, jaguars, boars also have libertarian free-will when they make a path in the jungle?

How about beavers building dams. Or birds building nests? Or termites?

Or stones breaking off the face of a mountain, for that matter. We can't predict where those things will roll. With things, we speak of luck and have that concept. With people, we speak of...

Not that it matters much which we speak of.

Yes, a determinist can become a fatalist.
Yes, a free willer can become a nasty judgmental, un-empathtic p****.
(and free willers can be fatalists without noticing the clash...and determinists can certainly we nasty judgmental, unempatheic pricks)

But neither is entailed.

And both can go to a local school board meeting and try to get the teachers to stop______________________ing.

[Flannel Jesus]

Alluding to the difference without talking about the difference isn't useful.

What I alluded to is what I assumed was obvious. The compatibilist sez free will is reconcilable with necessitarianism. I believe he is wrong and that makes the difference.

You're still just alluding to things instead of saying them. You were given a scenario that was explicitly compatibilist, you said you view that situation as libertarian free will despite knowing that it's clearly an explicitly compatibilist description of things, and you aren't saying why.

You say there's a difference between what you believe and "necessitarianism", and yet the scenario you're here agreeing with is perfectly "necessitarian" - the agent in question was necessarily always going to do the exact thing he did in the exact way he did it. Rewind time, rewind the agent and environment to their previous states, and he will necessarily do it the same way every time - that's "necessitarianism", that's what you're agreeing with.

[attofishpi]

Penal reform only makes sense of you believe the world is deterministic. Determinism recognises that criminality is caused.

In the greatest Protestant tradiction especially Calvinist, prisons are institutes of "REFORM", and that is why they were called "Correctional". Because this appraoch understands that free will is a mirage

If crime is just about free will, then no amount of adjustment and learning is going to trun a criminal into a decent citizen.
But outside the USA (where privatisation has just about fucked the whole system) rehabilitation worlks and the rst of the world has much lower rates of repeat offending.
If you steer criminals to a better life, give them skills , job prospects, and so on, they tend to stay away form prison and get on with their lives. Such intervention CAUSES change in most prisoners.
However if you believe they are just willful and evil then you might as well lock them up and throw away the key.

It's all entirely 'freaky' to consider actually.

I watch a lot of true crime and generally simply on the news where some rapist\murderer has been given a second chance and let to live once again, among us...they do it again. So for certain crimes I don't care about their prospects for 'rehabilitation' fuck 'em throw away the key.
Sure, give them something to do in gaol, teach them how to make a nice cabinet - but there is NO intelligent reason to let them back into society where another woman, child or me has to deal with 'em.

[Iwannaplato]

Alluding to the difference without talking about the difference isn't useful.

What I alluded to is what I assumed was obvious. The compatibilist sez free will is reconcilable with necessitarianism. I believe he is wrong and that makes the difference.

You're still just alluding to things instead of saying them. You were given a scenario that was explicitly compatibilist, you said you view that situation as libertarian free will despite knowing that it's clearly an explicitly compatibilist description of things, and you aren't saying why.

You say there's a difference between what you believe and "necessitarianism", and yet the scenario you're here agreeing with is perfectly "necessitarian" - the agent in question was necessarily always going to do the exact thing he did in the exact way he did it. Rewind time, rewind the agent and environment to their previous states, and he will necessarily do it the same way every time - that's "necessitarianism", that's what you're agreeing with.

Which would all be rather trivial except it empowered Iambiguous to pretend the same thing.

[Flannel Jesus]

Which would all be rather trivial except it empowered Iambiguous to pretend the same thing.

Iambiguous is honest, it's all in his name. "Ambiguous". Some "philosophers", if we allow ourselves a big enough head to even use that word, love clarity above all else. Some philosophers get into philosophy because they want clearer answers, or the tools to get clearer answers. Some philosophers, on the other hand, love ambiguity. Iambiguous puts it right there in his name. Henry Quirk and him are getting along so well in this thread because they enjoy ambiguity.

Thinkers who crave clarity, and thinkers who like playing in the mud of ambiguity - those two types of thinkers are like oil and water.

[Iwannaplato]

Iambiguous is honest, it's all in his name. "Ambiguous".

You make a case, an argument. People criticize it. At some point there is a twinge: hm, that's a good point that person just made. or I don't really know how to respond or justify what I wrote. Some cognitive dissonance. Some anxiety.

You have to be able to, and willing to, notice those twinges.

You don't even have to have the integrity to admit they happened.

But gosh, when stressed in those moments,you decide to mock and mndf*** the person whose point led to that twinge, so you don't have to deal with the twinge and its attendant feelings, that's ugly.

I don't see HQ doing that last. But Iambiguous, and VA for that matter, they'll tear out their kitchen sink out of the wall and throw it at you, all the while saying that objectivists and theists are soothing themselves with poorly justified beliefs.

Ultimately it's self-abuse, but it's so public.

[phyllo]

There is nothing ambiguous about lots of what Iambiguous writes.

For example ...

You need the ability to choose otherwise for there to be moral responsibility.

How many times has he stated that?

How many times has he ignored or mocked any other concept of moral responsibility?

[Flannel Jesus]

There is nothing ambiguous about lots of what he writes.

Iambiguous? Or HC?