compatibilism

[Flannel Jesus]

If you do not care what I have already said, then 'we' will just leave it there.

If you have something to say, say it.

I did say it. And, you have specifically stated that you do not care that I have already said it.

You've made thousands of posts on this forum, I haven't memorized them all, so you telling me you've already said it is beyond stupid.

Okay. But, and if I recall correctly, since you had already responded to it, then I was just reminding you that I had already said it. Which, again, resolved and answered the actual questions that you were asking here.

But, even when I defined other words here, which showed how they worked with other words, other definitions, and with the topic of discussion within this thread, which you even acknowledged, and also said that 'you liked it', only a couple of your posts later you still went on to 'argue' with another about the very old different definition for a word, which has been 'discussed about', for thousands upon thousands of years already, with absolutely no resolution in sight. So, I could re-repeating the definitions for words, which actually 'work', but then, as before, I will get criticized for just repeating things, over and over.

How am I supposed to use the information that you've already said some thing? Just say it again.

1. 'Free will' is 'the ability to choose', only.

2. It is absolutely impossible for things like so-called "compatibilists", "libertarians", "determinants", nor any other name or label that is 'tried to' be put on, or assigned to, just another human being. And to prove this irrefutably True, define "compatibilist" in a way that 'works with', and 'fits in, perfectly with', every other word and their definitions, and which can be agreed with and accepted by every one.

There are no so-called "compatibilists" because it is not a word that can be defined properly, Accurately, and Correctly. As will come-to-light if, and when, any one tries to.

You think you're that important that if you've already said something, I'm just going to remember what you said if you just say you already said it?

Why are 'you' telling 'me' what 'I think', but then 'you' put a question mark at the end of 'your accusing statement'?

You're not that important. Just say it again.

I did above here, at number 2.

Number 2 above barely qualifies as English

[Flannel Jesus]

I am not sure how I can make this any more clearer, for you, and others, here.

Do not write anything for me if I'm not your audience.

But how would I know if you are my targeted audience or not?

you seem to have a conflated or confused perception of what I have actually been meaning. you appear to made the same False and Wrong conclusion here, just like "iwannaplato" has been continually making.

Don't reply to me, don't quote me. If I'm not your audience, leave me the fuck alone.

Why do you, continually, have a negative and/or False perception of 'me', and of 'my words' here?

Because you're a **** and a jackass and annoying and because you reply to me and then say dumb shit like "you're not my audience", but instead of saying it succinctly like that you take 100 words to say it. Learn how to be succinct. And if you quote me and reply to me, I better be your goddamn audience. And if you post anything on this forum, someone here better be your goddamn audience.

[Age]

Do not write anything for me if I'm not your audience.

But how would I know if you are my targeted audience or not?

you seem to have a conflated or confused perception of what I have actually been meaning. you appear to made the same False and Wrong conclusion here, just like "iwannaplato" has been continually making.

Don't reply to me, don't quote me. If I'm not your audience, leave me the fuck alone.

Why do you, continually, have a negative and/or False perception of 'me', and of 'my words' here?

Because you're a **** and a jackass and annoying and because you reply to me and then say dumb shit like "you're not my audience",

But I have never ever said this. This is just another example of another one who completely and utterly MISSES what I actually say and write here, and thus there is no wonder why they completely and utterly MISS and MISUNDERSTAND what I mean, as well.

but instead of saying it succinctly like that you take 100 words to say it.

To say 'what', exactly?

Instead of just saying 'it', why not just say what 'it' is, exactly, and directly, instead?

Or, in other words, why do you not just follow your own advice here?

Also, you, obviously, still do not even know what 'it' is, exactly? So, if I used one, one hundred, or more words, you would, still, not have a clue what 'it' is that I was actually saying, and meaning.

Learn how to be succinct.

So, you think or believe that you are, somehow, more capable than me here, and thus you believe you have 'the right' to tell me what to do here, yet you cannot even copy, verbatim, what I say and write here. Which explains, and proves, why you are MISSING, MISINTERPRETING, and MISUNDERSTANDING so much here.

So, how about you learn to read, properly, and Correctly, instead.

And if you quote me and reply to me, I better be your goddamn audience.

LOL you, still, have what I, actually, said, and meant, absolutely Wrong, Inaccurate, and Incorrect.

And if you post anything on this forum, someone here better be your goddamn audience.

LOL Still, you are absolutely MISINTERPRETED, here.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever considered seeking out, and obtaining, actual CLARITY, before you assume things, and/or believe things?

[Age]

If you have something to say, say it.

I did say it. And, you have specifically stated that you do not care that I have already said it.

You've made thousands of posts on this forum, I haven't memorized them all, so you telling me you've already said it is beyond stupid.

Okay. But, and if I recall correctly, since you had already responded to it, then I was just reminding you that I had already said it. Which, again, resolved and answered the actual questions that you were asking here.

But, even when I defined other words here, which showed how they worked with other words, other definitions, and with the topic of discussion within this thread, which you even acknowledged, and also said that 'you liked it', only a couple of your posts later you still went on to 'argue' with another about the very old different definition for a word, which has been 'discussed about', for thousands upon thousands of years already, with absolutely no resolution in sight. So, I could re-repeating the definitions for words, which actually 'work', but then, as before, I will get criticized for just repeating things, over and over.

How am I supposed to use the information that you've already said some thing? Just say it again.

1. 'Free will' is 'the ability to choose', only.

2. It is absolutely impossible for things like so-called "compatibilists", "libertarians", "determinants", nor any other name or label that is 'tried to' be put on, or assigned to, just another human being. And to prove this irrefutably True, define "compatibilist" in a way that 'works with', and 'fits in, perfectly with', every other word and their definitions, and which can be agreed with and accepted by every one.

There are no so-called "compatibilists" because it is not a word that can be defined properly, Accurately, and Correctly. As will come-to-light if, and when, any one tries to.

You think you're that important that if you've already said something, I'm just going to remember what you said if you just say you already said it?

Why are 'you' telling 'me' what 'I think', but then 'you' put a question mark at the end of 'your accusing statement'?

You're not that important. Just say it again.

I did above here, at number 2.

Number 2 above barely qualifies as English

So, 'this one' cannot comprehend and understand that it is, absolutely, impossible for it to show and prove that the so-called labeled names above exist.

And, 'this one', among others, will prove me absolutely True, Right, Accurate, and Correct.

That is; if they ever even begin to prove me Wrong here.

[Age]

As noted by others, however, sure, I might be misconstruing his point. For all I know the author herself might be misconstruing it. Strawson seems [to me] to be making a distinction between acting and reacting. Mary acts by aborting her unborn baby/clump of cells. Others react to this in conflicting ways...all up and down the moral, political, and spiritual spectrum. But Mary's behavior itself derives from her own subjective reaction to the unwanted pregnancy. Then the billions and billions of human actions/reactions day after day after day after day going back millenia.

Like clockwork?

He's not drawing a distinction between actions and reactions in any way that implies that one is a free thing and the other is determined.

More to point, however, some argue that the distinction he drew was the only distinction he was ever able to draw.

Which would hold also for scientists and of course anyone they communicate with, so the is ought distinction and the science vs philosophy distinctions you emphasize are meaningless.

Again, from my frame of mind -- click -- this is not a meaningful, substantial reaction to the points I made above. Where's Mary, for example?

Science and compatibilism, philosophy and compatibilism. Six of one, half dozen of the other? That's how some construe it. Nothing that is matter transcends the laws of matter, they are compelled to argue. It's just that brain matter is like no other matter we have ever come across. On the other hand, given this...

It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%.

Are you able to explain what so-called 'dark energy' and 'dark matter' are, exactly?

If no, then why do you claim that 'it turns out' that, roughly, a percentage of the Universe are these things?

But, if yes, then what are 'those things', exactly?

The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe.

So, in other words, it is claimed, by some human beings in the days when this is being written, that the, whole, Universe is less than 5% matter, and more than 95% something else.

Which, by the way, fits in, perfectly, what I have said and claimed here about what the Universe is fundamentally made up of.

...you tell me where human autonomy fits in here. As always, with me, in regard to meaning and morality, I'm drawn and quartered. Whereas others seem to actually believe that what they do believe "here and now" about compatibilism really, really is, if not the only rational assessment, then certainly the optimal assessment.

All human beings, and all matter, is 'deterministic', while all human beings have 'the ability to choose', or in other words 'free will'. And, this is irrefutable because there is not a human being who could refute this, as you human beings will prove True, for me.

Or, perhaps, it's like hard determinists asking, "what part of everything that we think, feel, say and do we were never able not to think, feel, say and do" don't you understand?"

And let's get back to how Strawson might have explained his argument to Mary above.

I don't think she is saying that about his thoughts but one can read Strawson's arcticle here, for example
https://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/P._ ... ntment.pdf

Then the part where some compatibilists will argue that even though you were never actually able to read the article, you are still responsible for, what, understanding what it said?

Could you show me any article or text by any compatibilist that leads to that conclusion?

Again, Mary and her abortion are nowhere to be seen.

As for reading the article, let those here who believe that they do grasp an optimal understanding of compatibilism, explain to us how they are able to pin down "free will" here. Were they or were they not determined by laws of matter emanating from their brain to read it? And if they were never, ever going to come into contact with it, how can they be held responsible for not sharing its conclusions?

The part I keep missing.

We have evolved to have bodily reactions and mental processes that ultimately serve the evolutionary purpose of our preservation, and our reactive attitudes are part of that.

This could certainly be the case. So, how do we go about attempting to actually demonstrate it?

that sentences is, more or less, darwinism. The only problem with it is that it overreaches: we may inherit traits that are slightly negative or neutral. But that sentence holds for most traits.

On the other hand Strawson does not mention evolution. She's going off on her own and adding interpretations. He does call the reactions natural.

Going off on her own? In other words, the possibility that when she does this, she may well have never been able not to. It's not what he calls reactions, some argue, but his capacity to demonstrate that all other rational men and women are obligated to describe them in the same way.

What's not that? What are you asserting here?

That we both may well be asserting things here like actors reading their lines from a script going all the way back to the Big Bang? Just as with Strawson and the author?

Sure, like others here, there's a part of me able to question that. It just seems ridiculous that I am not typing these words "here and now" of my own volition. Just as given your own "here and now" you are reading them of your own volition. But that is no where near the same as actually establishing this...ontologically? Let alone, given meaning and morality, teleologically?

Just out of curiosity, if you were to take his assumptions to a convention of neuroscientists, how might they, well, react to it? Would they be able to connect the dots between the human brain and the human mind here? Such that a chemical and neurological distinction between human action and human reactions can be noted. Can be established?

Neurosciensts tend to assume what you say here.

Or, perhaps, neuroscientists, just like all the rest of us, assume nothing they were ever able not to assume.

Right, so will you stop framing the issue as if scientists weighing in is what is needed, given that you now acknowledge that not only their thoughts and conclusions may well be determined, but then anyone listening to the may be compelled to misinterpret them or believe them not for rational reasons?

Sure, as soon as you are able to establish that, in framing the issue as I do, I was in fact able to frame it otherwise. The right way. As, say, you or phyllo or FJ do?

Also, as noted before, imagine the universe had locations where free will prevailed and locations where determinsm prevailed.

We can certainly do that, but Strawson is not saying anything like that.

Well -- click -- maybe he should have.

Why should he have? Are you now saying that he should have, and that's why you responded as if he did? Does that make sense to you?

Because my point is one way in which others might think about this. Or did Strawson just assume that we need not take this much beyond planet Earth? Though, some will suggest, it's not like he was ever able himself to suggest otherwise.

Claiming, asserting or believing things philosophically is one thing, actually establishing that they are true objectively for all of us another thing all together.

Except in a wholly determined universe, where they are actually interchangeable? And essentially meaningless sans God or Pantheism?

She isn't saying he is claiming that.

He is saying that the fact of deteminism does not undermine our moral reactions and assigning responsibility.

Right, and then the part where "somehow" the brain has managed to make that distinction between acting and reacting. And even though it would seem to make sense that we be held responsible for things that we opted freely to do, it doesn't make sense [to me] that we be held responsible for reacting to the actions of others if the laws of matter compelled our brain to compel that and only that reaction.

Obviously. Could you present the reasoning for your position and perhaps why the reasoning of those who have said it does make sense are incorrect?

No, very, very little of what we are speculating about here is obvious, in my view. In fact, I often wonder to what extent the Benjamin Button Syndrome is applicable in the either/or world. All those zillions and zillions of atoms swirling about in our bodies, in our brains, interacting with zillions and zillions and zillions and zillions of other atoms "out there". Really, if it turned out that the human condition is just a "sim world" or a "dream world" or a working model Matrix, I probably would not be all that surprised. Well, if that was an option, anyway.

As for "presenting reasoning"...why would that be any different? Same brain.

But then the part where I do keep missing the point about compatibilism and moral responsibility. Only in that case how am I not straight back to the assumption "here and now" that I could never have not missed it.

Well, first off you could try stopping saying that compatibilists in general and in individual cases are saying that there are regions of free will (in brains for example) and respond to what they do say.

Trying to start and stop, actually starting and stopping, reacting to the starts and the stops of others. Maybe the human condition is just a video game that some super-advanced civilization "out there" employs to entertain their children.

In fact, one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes imagines just that: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734625/

Note to compatibilists:

Please attempt again to explain how you would hold someone morally responsible for something they were never able not to do. If I do keep missing something truly important here then note why you do not keep missing it yourself.

People have done this. I did it over at ILP with the man hitting a stranger with a hammer for no reason. You opted not to respond to that. If you are not going to respond to explanations, why ask for them? I think I've done it here. I know Phyllo has. I believe FJ has done it here. This doesn't mean we proved anything, but as far as I can tell you don't interact with the explanations you request.

Come on, we are grappling with issues here that have thoroughly fascinated -- and boggled -- the minds of both scientists and philosophers now for centuries.

But these questions are so fucking fascinating! People like us just can't resist rolling the boulder a little further up -- or down? -- the hill.

Look, if you are convinced that you have in fact accomplished this you have -- click -- two options:

1] keep trying with me
2] give up with me and move on to others

In an argument [since that's as far as we seem able to go here], note how Strawson's assessment above is applicable to your own value judgments...to your own actions and reactions. Note what you would suggest neuroscientists ought to do experientially and experimentally in order to pin this down more...substantively?

It's not a neuroscientist issue. Neuroscientists could certainly weigh in on determinism vs free will in the nervous system including the brain. Just as physicists could. But that's not the issue with compatibilists.

Again: "...note how Strawson's assessment above is applicable to your own value judgments...to your own actions and reactions."

Who knows, if you bring this stuff down to Earth often enough rhen, given your own interactions with others, you might post something that does begin to sink in more. Of course, that works the other way around too.

And, again, why do you think neuroscienstists should be more convincing: their conclusions, in a deterministic universe would also be determined, and your interpretation and 'being convinced' by them would also be determined.

To the extent that scientists themselves study the brain, how could they not deem it vital to determine if they are doing so of their own volition? Yeah, some argue this is the job of philosophers, not scientists, but how many philosophers do you know who employ fMIR technology in order to actually study the functioning brain?

"Neuroscience, also known as Neural Science, is the study of how the nervous system develops, its structure, and what it does. Neuroscientists focus on the brain and its impact on behavior and cognitive functions."georgetown university

Gee, what could that possibly have to do with Mary aborting Jane, provoking all manner of conflicting moral reactions?

Why post in a philosophy forum, or two at least, and request explanations when you don't interact with them when they come? If you want neuroscientists to answer your question, why not go to science forums or contact neuroscientists directly?

Or -- click -- why do you continue to respond to someone that you insist refuses to actually respond in turn to your own explanations? Or, are we both off the hook given that this exchange itself is unfolding in the only possible way that it could have going back to....to what exactly?

He believes that moral reactions are utterly compatible with determinism, and part of what he does is to show how we decide in a determinist universe if some one is responsible and that how we determine that does not entail arguing that person X was determined and person Y was not.

From my frame of mind -- click -- he was just doing what all the rest of us here are still just doing...accumulating sets of assumptions about the human condition that permit some to believe "in their head" there to be free will.

What? He is not arguing for free will.

Okay, but for those like me [who, yes, may well be wrong here], is he or is he not arguing that Mary was never able not to abort Jane but that she is still morally responsible for doing so? Sounds like free will to me. Either that or a language game? Is this one of the things Wittgenstein suggested we not speak of precisely because of the gap here between words and worlds?

On the other hand, is it an inherent gap? Who knows, maybe someday we will make contact with the folks from Flatland and we can explore that gap.

Again, if someone came and quoted from your posts and said Clearly Iambigious is a Bible Thumper, spewing his deontological morality and is willing to force people with violence to agree with him, I''d pop in and say they were mistinterpreting you and back it up by showing whatever they quoted did not support that position. I suspect you would start saying that my interpretation of you is compelled - even if you agree with it in the abstract. You might even, [shock] point out that you did not assert those things and ask for some evidence you did.

How does that really change anything? Either that exchange itself unfolded in the only possible material reality or "somehow" when matter became biological and biological matter became conscious, and conscious biological matter became self-conscious biological matter, we just acquired autonomy.

Or, perhaps, this still all comes down to...souls? The God thing?

[Flannel Jesus]

I'm going back to ignoring you now. I'm not your audience anyway. Please don't quote me or reply to anything I say from now on.

[iambiguous]

Again, from my frame of mind -- click -- this is not a meaningful, substantial reaction to the points I made above. Where's Mary, for example?

Well, you often frame the Mary situation and other moral situations by saying there is a distinction between is and ought.

No, what I do is to note how, given my own rooted existentially in dasein experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge, "I" have come to conclude what I do "here and now" about these things. My "Mary" aborted her unborn baby/clump of cells. That is a fact. On the other hand, ought she have done so?

Is it a fact that she ought not to have done this?

You argue that we can know X about a pregant person and what an abortion will do. But we cannot know about whether she should do it or not. While in other posts you make arguments about how determinism undermines all our conclusions.

Again, I am not arguing that determinism "undermines our conclusions" so much as to suggest it makes them...interchangeable? That's why compatibilism continues to boggle my mind. How on Earth can someone "act out" Nature's script other than as their brain compels them to? Where -- chemically and neurologically -- does autonomy fit in here?

If my point was not relevant to the Mart sitution than your bringing up the is/ought distinction is not relevant.

We think about these interactions differently.

But, okay, scrap Mary. How about we focus instead on your own behaviors. Interactions with others that came into conflict regarding meaning and morality. How, for example, would you go about demonstrating that our exchange here is not an inherent component of the only possible reality in the only possible world?

Other than in an argument that revolves around words defining and defending other words. Much like my own.

If we are trying to work out way towards either common ground or THE TRUTH (if this is possible) or both, the process may not be that my posts immediately lead to our agreement about what Mary should have done or if morals can be objective or if it is wrong to assign responsibility directly. They make shift the way things are framed in a longer process where we might arrive at agreement.

Again and again and again: a philosophical argument here must eventually come around to The Gap and to Rummy's Rule. Given particular contexts.

Still, suppose you had a friend who was contemplating an abortion. She was a determinist, however, and argued that "it's all beyond my control". Do you yourself "here and now" believe she is morally responsible anyway?

Same for those here who claim to be compatibilists. What would you tell her if she had the abortion and insisted it's all fated or destined.

Perhaps the way you are framing the issue is part of the problem.

I would never deny that possibility.

Look, I want to believe in human autonomy. And i suspect i will go to the grave wanting to. But then back to this: "Man can do what he wants, but man can't want what he wants."

Women neither, I suspect.

On the other hand I have directly explained how I think assigning responsibility is compatible with determinism.

Well, it hasn't sunk in yet. So, you can keep trying or you can move on to others.

Oh, yeah: click.

Science and compatibilism, philosophy and compatibilism. Six of one, half dozen of the other? That's how some construe it. Nothing that is matter transcends the laws of matter, they are compelled to argue. It's just that brain matter is like no other matter we have ever come across.

This is very unclear but it sounds like you might be saying again that compatibilists say that brain matter is somehow outside of determinism. They aren't.

No, what I keep coming back to is not what compatibilists argue here, but how they go about demonstrating that, even though their own brain compels them to argue what they must, and other brains are compelled to react to that as they must, they are still responsible...morally or otherwise.

On the other hand, given this...

It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe.

...you tell me where human autonomy fits in here. As always, with me, in regard to meaning and morality, I'm drawn and quartered. Whereas others seem to actually believe that what they do believe "here and now" about compatibilism really, really is, if not the only rational assessment, then certainly the optimal assessment.

I haven't said anything about autonomy.

Well, this is a thread that revolves around compatibilism. It does come up from time to time.

I don't see what dark matter has to do with Mary.

Start here: https://chandra.harvard.edu/darkuniverse/

I don't either. But that's the point: apparently no one does. Yet if we are ourselves are part of the universe, it certainly would not seem irrational to suggest some connection.

Or, perhaps, it's like hard determinists asking, "what part of everything that we think, feel, say and do we were never able not to think, feel, say and do" don't you understand?"

And let's get back to how Strawson might have explained his argument to Mary above.

He wrote an article that anyone can read. Of course how he would have interacted with Mary would likely have depended on what he thought about abortions in terms of morality.

And how would that not depend as well on his capacity to think about the morality of abortion itself with some measure of autonomy?

So, it's an absurd questions to ask us to speculate on. we can however see how he spoke about morality in general, and we could try to work out how he might say something to someone who he thought was doing something immoral.

Absurd? From my frame of mind it would seem absurd not to ask it. Unless, of course, you were never able to ask it.

I don't think she is saying that about his thoughts but one can read Strawson's arcticle here, for example
https://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/P._ ... ntment.pdf

Then the part where some compatibilists will argue that even though you were never actually able to read the article, you are still responsible for, what, understanding what it said?

Could you show me any article or text by any compatibilist that leads to that conclusion?

Again, Mary and her abortion are nowhere to be seen.

I was responding to this quote of yours where Mary and her abortion are nowhere to be seen.

Then the part where some compatibilists will argue that even though you were never actually able to read the article, you are still responsible for, what, understanding what it said?

Do you mean if you make up stuff, no one should point this out or ask for support for your statements? Does making up stuff help us reach a conclusion about Mary?

Make stuff up? Or does that still basically revolve around those who do not make up the same stuff that you do?

As for reading the article, let those here who believe that they do grasp an optimal understanding of compatibilism, explain to us how they are able to pin down "free will" here.

Hey, idiot. He doesn't argue for free will. HE DOESNT ARGUE FOR FREE WILL.

Forgot Strawson. I was asking "others here" to factor their own understanding of free will into the article. In particular the compatibilists among us.

Were they or were they not determined by laws of matter emanating from their brain to read it? And if they were never, ever going to come into contact with it, how can they be held responsible for not sharing its conclusions?

The part I keep missing.

Actually it's the part you keep making up. If you are too fucking lazy or disinterested in reading the people you quote and every single time your're just going to make up positions they do not have, why not stop quoting them?

Fortunately, even Stooges are not exempt from living in a world where everything we think, feel, say and do is for all practical purposes "beyond our control". So, he's still off the fucking hook!

If you only want people who are anti-abortion to respond to this thread, MAKE THAT CLEAR.

Click.

Huh? Where did that come from? I am myself still fractured and fragmented in regard to abortion. And what I want is to come upon an argument able to convince me that free will may well be the real deal. Or, if the real deal is determinism, how compatibilists reconcile that with determinism.

If you want someone to actually explain how they think determinism is compatible with holding people responsible then actually read what they write, here or at ILP, and accept their example, since they may not be anti-abortion so your exmaple doesn't work.

Note to others:

You cannot imagine how many times I have encountered this argument over ther years. So, sure, it might be true. On the other hand, I'm still convinced that for any number of moral objectivists [or whatever iwannaplato calls himself in regard to things like the morality of abortion] when they note things like this what they are really conveying is the fact that I still refuse to understand these issues as they do.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong.

[Age]

I'm going back to ignoring you now. I'm not your audience anyway. Please don't quote me or reply to anything I say from now on.

This here is a prime example of just how BLIND, DEAF, and STUPID people would become when they would BELIEVE some thing is true.

Once more, I have never ever said nor written that 'this one' nor 'another one' is not my audience. Yet, because this is what 'this ones' BELIEVES, it is not able to SEE, nor HEAR, what the actual Truth is, exactly.

[iambiguous]

Look, in no way, shape or form am I arguing that my point of view here regarding meaning, morality and/or the Big Questions is the correct one.

I never said you were.

Right. You're here instead to remind others how [over and over and over again] I fail to grasp the arguments of everyone else.

Instead, I suggest that, given how I have come to understand the tools of philosophy "here and now", there may well not be any answers in a Godless universe. At least not in regard to those things that are most important to me.

On the other hand, I believe my posts here do qualify as serious philosophy. And, in part, I know this because I majored in philosophy at TSU and the professors themselves there were intrigued by it.

They raise serious philosophy issues. What I react to is the way you use the quotes of others and generally do not interact with them. They are treated as triggers to repeat your positions. So, the same perfectly good issues are re-raised.

More to the point [mine] they might be construed as scary philosophical issues. I mean, here I am arguing philosophically that...

1] human existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless
2] human morality is rooted existentially in dasein
3] human mortality is a sure thing as one by one we tumble over into the abyss that is oblivion

Again, I want to believe this is not really the case at all. Though, sure, with some, if they can't help to pull me up out of this hole, maybe I can convince them instead to come down into it with me.

Win/win.

To wit...

In JoAnn Fuchs class, devoted to the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir, I was assigned the task of assessing her novel The Blood of Others.

JoAnn was really impressed with my conclusions. Which were a rudimentary reflection of what I believe now. She passed them on to her [at the time] husband Walt Fuchs. But he and I had already had many long and truly exhilarating discussions about how "for all practical purposes" existentialism and Marxism were relevant in a "postmodern" world. I also had many encounters with another philosophy professor there, Rene DeBrabander, discussing much the same things.

Now, back then I was like few other students. Almost all of them had just graduated from high school. Whereas I had worked at Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock and in the tin mill and the pipe mill at Bethlehem Steel. I had been drafted into the Army, spent a harrowing year in Vietnam and almost didn't make it back.

In other words, many of my most rewarding relationships back then were with teachers, not with other students..

Lovely. But any philosophy professor, responding to a paper or responding to assertions made by students, is going to challenge if that student is accurately responding to what they are quoting/interpreting. They're not going to sit back and let strawman arguments go by.

What I wouldn't give to have them here responding to that themselves!

The irony here however is that, to the best of my recollection, we never really explored determinism in depth. Or nothing that stands out here and now. I was unequivocally a free will advocate back then. And Jo Ann and Walt were Marxists and feminists. I can't imagine them arguing that human interactions were fundamentally fated to unfold autonomically.

[Iwannaplato]

Again, from my frame of mind -- click -- this is not a meaningful, substantial reaction to the points I made above. Where's Mary, for example?

Well, you often frame the Mary situation and other moral situations by saying there is a distinction between is and ought.

No, what I do is to note how, given my own rooted existentially in dasein experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge, "I" have come to conclude what I do "here and now" about these things. My "Mary" aborted her unborn baby/clump of cells. That is a fact. On the other hand, ought she have done so?

You just did precisely what I said.

Is it a fact that she ought not to have done this?

Here too. Contrasting 'is' facts, which we can know about with 'ought' claims which you argue we cannot know about. You just made the exact distinction I was talking about which you responded No to.

[Iwannaplato]

Perhaps the way you are framing the issue is part of the problem.

I would never deny that possibility.

Great, then don't judge my responses if they don't solve the entire Mary issue in that particular post. If my pots has to do with your way of framing the problem/issue, it could well be useful.

[Iwannaplato]

Look, in no way, shape or form am I arguing that my point of view here regarding meaning, morality and/or the Big Questions is the correct one.

I never said you were.

Right. You're here instead to remind others how [over and over and over again] I fail to grasp the arguments of everyone else.

I have been pointing out where, as I see it, you are not respönding to the positions of other posters here who respond to you and the articles you quote from. In specific instances. I don't know if it is everyone you quote. I have focused on specific instances. There seems to be a pattern.

There are many other reasons why I am here.

[Iwannaplato]

Again, I am not arguing that determinism "undermines our conclusions" so much as to suggest it makes them...interchangeable? That's why compatibilism continues to boggle my mind. How on Earth can someone "act out" Nature's script other than as their brain compels them to? Where -- chemically and neurologically -- does autonomy fit in here?

And you quote people who do not assert this. They do not assert libertarian autonomy. They accept determinism, yet assert that one can, nevertheless, say someone is responsble.

So, again and again, you quote people who are not saying brains are not determined, and repeat your incredibly that brains or humans are free from determinism. Strawson for example explicitly argues that his position fits with determinism, including the determined nature of our actions. But you respond to him as if he is asserting the opposite and repeat your position.

So, I point this out.

I hope you would consider it fair to say you think that his position makes no sense. However you do not respond to his position. I have seen this happen in relation to posters here and at ILP also, including myself, where we present an argument saying that one can assign responsibility despite determinism AND NOT based on some kind of exception for human brain cells from determinism. Your response has been incredulity that brain cells are free from determinism or incredulity that without that libertarian free will one should be assigned responsiblity.

What I have not seen is an argument supporting the latter. What i have not seen is you actually interacting with their actual argument. I just see reactions to what they/we are not saying.

[Iwannaplato]

Forgot Strawson.

Well, don't use Strawson.

I was asking "others here" to factor their own understanding of free will into the article. In particular the compatibilists among us.

People should factor in - what does that mean - their understanding of free will into an article that is not asserting free will.

That doesn't make sense to me.

Were they or were they not determined by laws of matter emanating from their brain to read it? And if they were never, ever going to come into contact with it, how can they be held responsible for not sharing its conclusions?

The part I keep missing.

Well, perhaps you should interact with Strawson's argument, then. Or with those posters here who have presented such arguments. Merely dismissing them and treating them as libertarian free will arguments, when they are not, will continue to lead to you missing the point.

Actually it's the part you keep making up. If you are too fucking lazy or disinterested in reading the people you quote and every single time your're just going to make up positions they do not have, why not stop quoting them?

Fortunately, even Stooges are not exempt from living in a world where everything we think, feel, say and do is for all practical purposes "beyond our control". So, he's still off the fucking hook!

If you only want people who are anti-abortion to respond to this thread, MAKE THAT CLEAR.

Click.

Huh? Where did that come from?

It comes from the fact that in ILP you wouldn't even discuss anoter moral issue. It had to be abortion. How can I argue that Mary should be held responsible for her immoral act of having an abortion if I dont think it's an immoral act. I chose an act that pretty much everyone would consider immoral and which I do. I then explained why I would hold that person responsbile for that action even in a determinist universe. You refused to even look at or respond to my argument because it wasn't abortion. I even said I could move from that argument once we had discussed that and I could present what a potential anti-abortionist could do with my argument, after we focus on a different moral issue.

No. You refused to respond to the argument. You decided not to respond to my reasons for shifting to a different moral issue.

The general issue is how can one give someone responsibility for their actions if their actions are utterly determined. I spend time responding to that.

Nothing, nada from you.

Yet you repeatedly say there is something you are nto getting. But when people actually present arguments, you don't respond, more than to repeat your positions.

My example was specific and concrete and I am nto the only one who has done this.

But pointing this out makes me a Stooge and you decide to socially judge me by calling me a Stooge and calling me Moe.

Again, why don't you tell use how you held me responsible for my actions, given that determinism may well be the case.

Over and over you judge morally people who reasonably respond to you requests or point out that you are misinterpreting them and other people.

Who gives a fuck if in your memory you were a well respected philosophy student 40/50 years ago, when here you don't respond to people actually meeting your requests by interacting with their posts, but rather just dismiss without justification and quote people assinging them positions they do not have. Further, here in a philosophy forum, when they present justification for why they disagree about the interpretation, you respond without presenting any reasons for your interpretation, sometimes acting like there is no way to ever decide that one interpretation is better than another, other times by saying,f or example, that I want to dominate you - by doing something really rather basic and common in philosophy and in philosophy classes - yes, I've taken those also.

We experience how you behave now, not however you behaved decades ago. Should I now counter with my assertions about what my philosophy professors thought of me and how they didn't call me Moe and a Stooge?

That would be just doubling down on a ridiculous tangent.

Hey, I'll avoid you for a while at least. You don't even have the fucking decency to respond to people politely meeting your requests.
You don't seem to give a shit about what the people you quote are actually saying.

Labeling someone a Stooge is facile and convenient. Actually interacting with their arguments and examples, especially when they actually respond to your requests, that might actually be useful to both of us.

[Age]

So, what 'we' have here is a prime example of what adult human beings would just keep doing, within particular groups, or particular cultures, from 'the age' of what the story of "adam and eve" was about, and referred to, took place in those cultures, hitherto when this was being written. That is; people disagreeing and arguing over 'things', while never even discussing what 'the things' were, exactly.

Even though the posters here have been informed of what the words 'free will' and 'determinism' referred to, exactly, (which fitted in, perfectly, with the big and whole picture/story), they, laughingly, keep disagreeing and arguing over 'things' that they were not even 'in agreement' over.

What these posters are showing and revealing here, is proof of what adult human beings, in some cultures, have been doing for thousands and thousands of years. Which explains, exactly, why there was so much warring and destruction going on in the year some referred to as twenty twenty four.

These people, back then, were so BLINDED, and DEAFENED, by their OWN BELIEFS that they, literally, could not SEE, nor HEAR, what was going on around nor within them.

There were, literally, TO BLIND, and DEAF, to learn, and recognize and see, that if, and when, they just came to an agreement and and an understanding, of the words that they were using, then there would be True 'understanding', and 'agreement', within 'the world'. From which is whence and where the 'Truly peaceful and harmonious world' began.