iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 1:24 am And around and around and around our brains compel us to go?
If we can't know without any doubt whatsoever whether this very exchange we are having is unfolding only as it ever could have, sure, we can take our own individual "leaps of faith" to one world of words rather than another. Those dueling definitions and deductions.
So, beyond philosophical arguments, are there any compatibilists here able to link us empirically, scientifically, neurologically, chemically, etc., to an actual experiment/experience...a demonstration that what they profess to know about all of this is in fact the...objective truth?
Click.
Me: Let''s say a scientist came and presented a compelling argument for free will. You could just respond. But for all I know that only seems to make sense but both you and I are compelled to think you made sense and in fact we are not free.
You said yes, but clearly you do not understand my point.Yes, if a scientist -- another Einstein? -- comes along and is able to provide us with comprehensive answers regarding how matter did manage to evolve into biological entities that evolved into conscious entities that evolved into self-conscious entities that evolved into philosophers, he or she may well then be able to establish in the minds of others, that they are either in possession of free will or they are not. Unless that too all unfolds in the only possible manner as well.
We would need some truly solid evidence regarding how the brain functions, however. And, sure, long after all of us are dead and gone, mere mortals may well confront that evidence. But if the evidence is conclusive that we do not possess free will?
Surreal, is the word I keep coming back to. Either way, I suppose. Unless, of course, out of the blue, Jesus Christ does return?
When one of us other humans writes something about this topic you often respond by contrasting the situation where we make points or or investigate the topic with the situation where a scientist comes and demonstrates, once and for all, whether we have free will or not. As if that could possibly be a different situation.
But what I was saying above is it would not be different. Because you could still wonder if in fact their demonstration should be convincing. Perhaps it just seems that way given determinism. You are compelled to believe it made sense.
Or, for that matter, it could be a brain in a vat scenarior. So, this contrast is false.
You could still doubt. So, what functions as a I don't need to listen to your suggestions, because this is not the ideal situation with a new Einstein who can show we have free will doesn't have any sense to it.
As far as I can tell, there is and will always be the possibiity we are wrong for some ontologica reason or another.
If you simply don't want to interact with anyone and these threads are not for discussion, ok. But the idea that one would have good grounds to discuss it if there was some (really rather odd) superexpert who came here makes no sense.
Over and over and over again, I come back to "the gap" here. The gap and those who seem able to just shrug all that aside as, what, a trivial pursuit?
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Jul 06, 2024 5:35 amGreat. Except I didn't say that.
So, why quote me and write that as if it is a response to what I wrote?
I never said there are scientists who are close to resolving it. What I pointed out is that we still have the same issue regardless. See above.What do you say about "the gap" then? If you don't shrug off these profoundly problematic conundrums then how are you not acknowledging that your own evidence here [like mine] can only really be encompassed up in the theoretical clouds. Link us to the scientists that, in your view, have come closest to finally resolving it.
So, the best we can do is reason about it between lay peers. If the only possible discussion where you would actually interact with the points made by other people is with the credentialed scientist who claims to have solved it, you've come to the wrong place. This is a philosophy discussion forum. And even if one miraculously appeared, the conundrum does not go away REGARDLESS of what this genius says. He or she might be correct, but you can't know if you were simply determined to think so.
We are, yes, in a situation, where there is (and I think will always be, an asterisk. Perhaps we are a brain in a vat or some kind of dream Or all our conclusions are determined, etc. This will not go away if Einstein 2.0 comes here with what you beIieve is the perfect research.
You can then say to him 'WeII that seems like perfect research and final proof, but perhaps we are just determined to think so.'
And you could write after any post in this forum, quoting the person, adding 'But we might be a brain in a vat.'
But hey, it's a discussion forum, one can interact with the points made.
And email addresses of the best scientists in the world are actually fairly easy to find on the internet and my experience is they actually respond to people, even lay people, who write to them.
I don't shrug off the issue. But here's the situation on the ground. Here we are alive. We hold people responsible or we don't. Someone does something to us or someone we know and we either are pro holding them responsible or we aren't through the way we live. Society does not have some third option, nor to we. We can choose a range of reactions if we hold them responsible. We can do a variety of things if we don't. But if there is a rape and we don't want rapes and/or consider it objectively immoral, we can only do something about it or not do something about it.
Regardless of whether determinism is the case or we know or don't know or think.
If we say we don't know or can't be sure, fine. But if we say that and do nothing, then we have acted as if we don't hold the person responsible.
So, here we are. That's on the ground, not up in the clouds. On the ground we try to reason as best we can.
Yes, we could throw up our hands and say we can't be sure we're not in a simulation or vat or we are determined to think X is more reasonable.
But once you come down out of the clouds you do your best. Inaction has consequences. Action has consequences.
So, Phyllo, FJ and I react by explaining what we think and what we would do. This does not mean we are ruling out all uncertainty. Hardly. It does not mean this issue has no meaning or is unimportant.
We made our best analyses and here presented arguments in relation to what to do in relation to acts we want to reduce or eliminate.
I am not saying this solves conflicting goods. But the specific issue of can one reconcile holding people responsible if determinism is the case or might be, I have given an answer.
You could interact with that answer or not, obviously.
But saying for all I know my response was determined and only seems to make sense, if it does that, is an up in the clouds response. As if we are not, in life, holding or not holding people responsible for their actions already, even in tiny acts like saying someone is shameless.
I stand corrected, thank you.