compatibilism

[Belinda]

On the other hand -- click -- if IC can't convince others here to accept Jesus Christ as their own personal savior, they are damned for all of eternity in Hell.

Perhaps that's because you're presently one of them.

1 Cor. 1:18 "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

But I'll let you decide that.

I want to be convinced that a God, the God does in fact exist. I want to be born again. I want to be saved.

Were that actually true, I suspect you would be already. But in case you're sincere, here: https://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-the-gospel.html

And perhaps if IC and I explore the "scientific and historical" evidence he claims that William Lane Craig provides to "demonstrate" His existence, I might come around.

Well, you'll have to give them some consideration, then. Here you go: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/

It's silly of Immanuel Can to pretend or believe he can answer the Problem of Evil which no theologian has ever satisfactorily answered:

Hume summarizes Epicurus's version of the problem as follows: "Is [god] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?
Trinity that includes Christ Son of God answers moral evil; nothing but blind faith answers natural evil

[Iwannaplato]

You're not cracking up on me, are you?

Stooge behavior on your part.

Of course, "bullshit" is often in the mind of the beholder here. But then this thread explores the extent to which the minds of the beholders themselves are or are not autonomous.

Sure, which can be said about anything anyone says. Some things you respond as if there is at least the possibility of us reasoning or understand or communicating. Other times you pull out the conversation stoppers.

And when did I ever say I would not respond to any real-world conflagrations that did not revolve around abortion?

In ILP. I pointed out why I chose another scenario. You said abortion was a perfectly good scenario and refused to respond to my post. I agree, it's a perfectly good scenario, but the problem for me is I don't judge Mary for getting an abortion. So, I chose a situation where I do hold someone responsible for their actions. You refused to respond to that post.

To wit:

And all I asked of others here is that -- click -- if their own memory is still largely intact, would they please attempt to note what they themselves believe you were attempting to convey with that example.

Actually you asked for the gist of the argument. Earlier you gave reasons why you weren't going to read the posts. We went through this once before and 1) it's two forums not three 2) I gave you easy links precisely after you asked Phyllo and you opted not to use them. There was no bullshit in my reaction.

Why don't you just copy and paste the example of the man with the hammer? I'll read it.

Why didn't use the fucking links it took me time to find and give you?
You can't even manage to apologize for not using the link, when I linked, or when I later explained that you only needed to try one link, when I responded to you in ILP, when you objected that the abortion issue was fine and refused to respond to my post.

You can't even lift you endlesslessly productive fingers and use the search function above for 'hammer' in this thread. 6 letters.
viewtopic.php?p=732442#p732442
that post and the one directly afterward.

And I would not be at all shocked if science and philosophy came around to your own conclusions here. But over and again it seems [to me] that commitment revolves more around exchanges with those like VA here.

And that is just not the sort of philosophical exchanges I pursue in regard to meaning, morality and metaphysics.

So, don't respond to me and I won't respond to you.

What? That makes no sense. I haven't complained that you're responded to me. I was pointing out that what you complained never happened, happened. That you have gotten responses that were not in theoretical clouds, and that you opted not to read them...and continued to complain that everyone is responding up in the theoretical clouds.

It makes considerable sense to me, however.

And, yet again no explanation about why it makes sense to you. No interaction with what I wrote. The VA school of philosophy. Repeat an assertion and avoid interacting with what other people say.

[Atla]

It makes considerable sense to me, however.

And, yet again no explanation about why it makes sense to you. No interaction with what I wrote. The VA school of philosophy. Repeat an assertion and avoid interacting with what other people say.

Umm.. does him being fractured mean that he has multiple personas/personalities with conflicting beliefs, or just one personality?

[Immanuel Can]

It's silly of Immanuel Can to pretend or believe he can answer the Problem of Evil which no theologian has ever satisfactorily answered

Well, I certainly never said I had exhausted that question. The Bible itself calls the existence of evil a great "mystery," so it's not surprising if it can only be partly accounted for by any mortal explainer. That is, in fact, why our need for the Ultimate Judge is so great -- apart from the wisdom of God, there will be no full accounting for evil.

But what I have done is much more modest. I have responded to such challenges as I have been given with the reasoned explanations I have, so far as they can go. If they are not up to your "satisfaction," that's unfortunate -- but it does not at all imply that no such answer is possible, nor does it give one reason to suppose that God cannot do, to full "satisfaction," what I can do to only partial "satisfaction."

And there the matter rests.

Hume summarizes Epicurus's version of the problem as follows: "Is [god] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?

Well, that isn't terribly bright of him, is it? I mean, if this gloss on Hume were all he said, he would be rather a simpleton about the question of evil. He would be asking us to assume that God could have no sufficient reason for allowing any evil. That surely has to be the supposition of his question -- that God is obligated not to allow any evil to exist at all, and hence that He's either failing through inability or lack of moral commitment?

But I have already dealt with this simple allegation on several occasions; and it is not difficult. It must be clear to any thinking person that there COULD be reasons why the allowance of the option of humans doing evil could be necessary. And the traditional answer to what that might be is very straightforward: freedom. If man is allowed to choose to obey God, then by definition of the concept "choice" he must also have access to at least one alternative. And that alternative has to be to disobey (in some form) as well as to obey. And while it's not a permanent necessity for such an alternative to be present, it must be present no less than one time to each person, or "choice" is not even an illusion, but an utter impossibility.

Could freedom be a sufficient good that God would be warranted in allowing the possibility of His creatures choosing to do evil instead? I think the answer is very obviously "yes." Freedom is certainly one of the highest good, if not THE highest good we know. With freedom comes not only the possibility of choice, but also of individuality, personal will, self, identity, rationality, autonomy, and above all, genuine relationship. If there is no other way that mankind can enter into voluntary, genuine relationship with God, then his being granted, for a time, the option of doing other-that-God-wills (which is the definition of evil, we might say) is a necessary step, and ultimately requisite for the highest goods mankind can come to know.

So there is an answer for that putatively unsolvable paradox, B. I hope you find it "satisfying." But if you don't, you'll still need to consider whether or not it's at least largely right. In any case, we know that Hume's or Epicurius's dilemma is not a serious one. It's just a false dichotomy.

[Iwannaplato]

It makes considerable sense to me, however.

And, yet again no explanation about why it makes sense to you. No interaction with what I wrote. The VA school of philosophy. Repeat an assertion and avoid interacting with what other people say.

Umm.. does him being fractured mean that he has multiple personas/personalities with conflicting beliefs, or just one personality?

I''ve rarely seen anyone else with such a consistant approach to conversation and interpersonal interactions, whose opinions haven't changed for a couple of decades, who rewrites the same things thousands of times often in posts after post for months, while at the same time claims to have no consistent self and that he could at any moment change his beliefs.

[Atla]

And, yet again no explanation about why it makes sense to you. No interaction with what I wrote. The VA school of philosophy. Repeat an assertion and avoid interacting with what other people say.

Umm.. does him being fractured mean that he has multiple personas/personalities with conflicting beliefs, or just one personality?

I''ve rarely seen anyone else with such a consistant approach to conversation and interpersonal interactions, whose opinions haven't changed for a couple of decades, who rewrites the same things thousands of times often in posts after post for months, while at the same time claims to have no consistent self and that he could at any moment change his beliefs.

Maybe he's two different people, the original theistic objectivist (now kept in the basement) and the 100% rudderless non-objectivist. Imo both these suck, but even I think that the the former one is better.

[iambiguous]

Criticising Strawson’s Compatibilism
Nurana Rajabova is wary of an attempt to dismiss determinism to keep free will

...our sense of moral responsibility also requires a relevant intention. So if the mother knows that the killer never intended to harm the child, that the incident was purely an awful accident, then at a personal level she may forgive him. At the social and legal levels, intention may not have such a resolving effect, although it may result for instance in a reduced sentence.

All of this unfolding given the assumption that what the mother comes to know about the intention of the killer and that the intention of the killer himself have "somehow" acquired an element of autonomy.

Intention then becoming one of those "internal components" of the human brain that "somehow" sort of transcends determinism in that, the compatibilists tell us, even though the mother and the killer are determined to intend and to react only as they ever could have, they are still responsible for it.

Focusing then on the "social and legal levels" changes none of that for the hard determinists. It's all an inherent manifestation of the only possible reality.

A real-life example like this happened a few years ago in my home town. A grandfather, while parking, not seeing his little grandchild playing behind the car, accidently hit him, and as a result the child died. This is indeed one example that clearly shows the discontinuity between moral responsibility and our reactive attitudes. The grandfather was held accountable on a legal basis, because he met the two main criteria of legal accountability, which are, a wrong action committed by a moral agent. Therefore, the reactive attitude towards this man happened to be more one of pity than resentment. Because everyone familiar with the story knew that he did not have any intention to harm the child.

Okay, again, imagine that this was the plot of a movie you were watching. The grandfather and the child and all the other characters are merely being scripted to sustain the plot created by the screenwriter and/or director. Reactions to it, legal and otherwise, are all intertwined in the only possible world.

This situation reminds me somewhat of another one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy

What if all of these "characters" are but more dominoes toppling over onto each other just as we continue to do so today.

Same with us and nature? Through the laws of matter, human intentions, human behaviors and human reactions to those behaviors are hard-wired into our brains from the cradle to the grave. If actions and reactions are all just manifestations of fated existence, that doesn't "somehow" stop with us.

[iambiguous]

On the other hand -- click -- if IC can't convince others here to accept Jesus Christ as their own personal savior, they are damned for all of eternity in Hell.

Perhaps that's because you're presently one of them.

Click!

Now! Here we go!! This...this encompasses you [the one inside my head] so perfectly.

Not only are you not willing to explore in depth actual videos you claimed demonstrate historically and scientifically that the Christian God does in fact reside in Heaven, but the inflection expresses a kind of gloating smugness on your part just thinking about me roasting down there. Or, rather, so it seems to me.

Then [of course] it's straight back up into the Biblical clouds...

1 Cor. 1:18 "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Note to others:

This is asserted to be true because -- click -- "it says so in the Bible". And if it says so in the Bible, it's the word of God, so it has to be true.

Heads, he wins, tails you lose. "But I'll let you decide that."

I want to be convinced that a God, the God does in fact exist. I want to be born again. I want to be saved.

Were that actually true, I suspect you would be already. But in case you're sincere, here: https://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-the-gospel.html

Can you believe it? While insisting that your own faith in God is not compelled by His omniscience -- He knows exaclty what you are going to do from the cradle to the grave, but He doesn't make you do anything -- and that William Lane Craig provides us with all the historical and scientific knowledge we'll ever need to know that He does resides in Heaven, you go straight back to "because it says so in the Bible".

And perhaps if IC and I explore the "scientific and historical" evidence he claims that William Lane Craig provides to "demonstrate" His existence, I might come around.

Well, you'll have to give them some consideration, then. Here you go: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/

Now, alas, I can only surmise the possibility that you really are afflicted with a "condition"!

You send me straight back to those videos!!

Then -- click -- this part: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/contact-us

Twice I attempted to convey to him the exchange that we were sustaining here and asked him to please contribute to it.

How about -- click -- you inviting him.

[Immanuel Can]

Then [of course] it's straight back up into the Biblical clouds...

1 Cor. 1:18 "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Well, you've been told. If you don't listen, it's on you.

[iambiguous]

Then [of course] it's straight back up into the Biblical clouds...

1 Cor. 1:18 "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Well, you've been told. If you don't listen, it's on you.

Click.

From my frame of mind, this may well be as close as IC comes to actually crumbling. If you get my drift. And autonomously or autonomically, you either do or you don't.

[Immanuel Can]

Then [of course] it's straight back up into the Biblical clouds...

Well, you've been told. If you don't listen, it's on you.

Click.

From my frame of mind, this may well be as close as IC comes to actually crumbling...

How odd. I had absolutely no thought of "crumbling." I'm not even feeling a strain.

I wonder what you can be imagining...

[iambiguous]

Unless, of course, you're wrong.

And what it means depends entirely on what assumptions you make regarding how the "human condition" fits into the existence of existence itself. And then how arrogant some then become here when insisting that their own and only their own assessment encompasses it.

Birth and death. No getting around them for any of us here. But what on Earth are we to make of either of them...ontologically, teleologically? And those subjective psychological assessments in regard to meaning, morality and metaphysics are all up and down the moral, political, philosophical and spiritual spectrum.

Then the distinction I make here between the either/or world where all rational men and woman actually can agree on any number of things empirically and experientially, and the is/ought world where truly epic confrontations have unfolded throughout all of human history.

Ok you seem to be committed to not getting anywhere, yet you seem to want to get somewhere. Make up your mind.

That's it? That's as far as you need go in responding to my points above? Or, sure, you can always claim as others here do that you've already gone over my points again and again, and it's a complete waste of time. Why? Because again and again I still refuse to think about these things as you do.

To me that is ridiculous. Determinism as I understand it today is no different from how I once understood Christianity, Marxism, Trotskyism, democratic socialism, existentialism, deconstruction and on and on. Except I have no illusions whatsoever that my understanding of these things here and now really, really has led me to my very own rendition of the One True Path.

One True Path = objectivism. Compared to that, I'm a legit non-objectivist.

Okay, but this thread focuses less on what the objectivists think about compatibilism and more on resolving one way or the other whether anything that any of us think about anything at all we could have freely opted otherwise.

Over and over again, the assumption on your part that you really, really do know how "the world works via determinism". As though this part...

I have no idea how this pertains to the point I made. As though we can come up with "standard definitions" of complexities of this sort and, what, be certain that when we did so it was of our own volition.

And, of course, to others, you sound like someone who is unable even to accept the possibility that what they think and feel and say and do is not entirely autonomous.

What are you even on about? How can you accuse a determinist of being unable even to accept the possibility that what they think and feel and say and do is not entirely autonomous? And what does that have to do with coming up with "standard definitions"?

Over and over again many hard determinists here will note that it's not what we accuse others of or what they accuse us of, but whether the accusations themselves reflect autonomous or wholly determined exchanges. Same with coming up with definitions. If they reflect the only possible manner in which individuals are able to define something, what does it mean for others to accuse them of being wrong. They're wrong only because they were never able to be right. And even those who are right are right only because they were never able to be wrong.

Okay, but how far is "holding something" to be true in regard to the human brain itself not always going to be problematic.

No way, they'll tell you. You can come to want any number of things from day to day, but if your brain is generating all of these wants it makes all the difference in the world.

It might be akin to watching a film unfold in which the characters want all sorts of things. But they want only what the director and/or the screene writer compel them to want. It's called a script. Well, what if Mother Nature is generating our own script from, say, the cradle to the grave?

Unless, of course, "somehow" your brain is also behind everything you delude yourself into thinking is not a delusion at all.

Okay, but you are using your brain to disagree. Or are you actually going to insist that you've got that covered. Your brain as opposed to other brains knows when to hand the reins over to you.

Dualistic gobbledygook. I AM (a part of) my brain.
I don't subscribe to Western philosophy that pretends that reality divides into mental and material. Those two are the same thing.

And gobbledygook right back at you. And while "I" seems clearly created in the mind by the brain, none of us really know what for all practical purposes that actually means in describing our own behaviors. Unless someone here would like to go there.

Of course, if there is a God or a Pantheistic entity "out there" able to provide us with both a teleological purpose and a soul infused with free will to embody it...? In any event there would seem to be some way in which to connect the dots between "I" and all there is.

If if.. so deep down you never gave up on objectivism and theism and dualism/souls and free will, you're just looking for someone to fully bring these back for you? Or maybe you're really so fractured that it's practically multiple personas with different wants and beliefs?

Please. I suspect that most of those who come to conclude that human existence is essentially meaningless, that morality is largely a social construct rooted existentially in dasein, that when you're dead it's likely to be forever, and that your entire life is fated and destined, want to be convinced that perhaps that's not the case at all.

So, sure, I come into places like this never entirely ruling out the possibility that someone might succeed in nudging me in a new direction.

(Ps. what does your burning need for theistic objectivism have to do with my take that compatibilism is incoherent when we use the standard meaning of free will?)

Well, if human interactions are as I think they are in my head here and now, then my alleged burning need for theistic objectivism like your own take on compatibilism, like the so-called "standard meaning of free will", are all just what they never ever could have been otherwise.

[iambiguous]

Well, you've been told. If you don't listen, it's on you.

Click.

From my frame of mind, this may well be as close as IC comes to actually crumbling...

How odd. I had absolutely no thought of "crumbling." I'm not even feeling a strain.

I wonder what you can be imagining...

Nature to IC:

Just say the word and I'll bring him around. God willing, of course.

[Atla]

Okay, but this thread focuses less on what the objectivists think about compatibilism and more on resolving one way or the other whether anything that any of us think about anything at all we could have freely opted otherwise.

Why would it, then you should have named the thread "do we have libertarian free will?", not "compatibilism", and mention the above in the OP.

Over and over again many hard determinists here will note that it's not what we accuse others of or what they accuse us of, but whether the accusations themselves reflect autonomous or wholly determined exchanges. Same with coming up with definitions. If they reflect the only possible manner in which individuals are able to define something, what does it mean for others to accuse them of being wrong. They're wrong only because they were never able to be right. And even those who are right are right only because they were never able to be wrong.

This attempted approach is completely useless, since even determinists can make everyday choices (like choosing their accusations and definitions). Why, did you think that we can find out if we have free will, this way?

And gobbledygook right back at you. And while "I" seems clearly created in the mind by the brain, none of us really know what for all practical purposes that actually means in describing our own behaviors. Unless someone here would like to go there.

Lol? Half of Eastern philosophy deals with that topic, although they didn't fully figure it out. Of course some people roughly know how it works. Or imo rather how the the various forms of the I work, imo there are like 6-8 forms. (Even before taking variations like sociopathy and psychopathy and autism and savantism into consideration.)

Anyway. To summarize, self-aware volition, manifested as part of the "I", usually plays a major role in making everyday choices, but I see no reason to think that it can deviate from determinism.

Please. I suspect that most of those who come to conclude that human existence is essentially meaningless, that morality is largely a social construct rooted existentially in dasein, that when you're dead it's likely to be forever, and that your entire life is fated and destined, want to be convinced that perhaps that's not the case at all.

So, sure, I come into places like this never entirely ruling out the possibility that someone might succeed in nudging me in a new direction.

But you're wasting your time here, because you already know that you won't be rationally convinced here. And from the looks of it, you're wasting a lot of your time.

Why not just believe that some unforeseeable/inexplicable thing will happen, because the world is infinitely larger and more mysterious than we can know and comprehend? And be done with it?

Well, if human interactions are as I think they are in my head here and now, then my alleged burning need for theistic objectivism like your own take on compatibilism, like the so-called "standard meaning of free will", are all just what they never ever could have been otherwise.

Irrelevant. Imo you are very confused that you bring this absolute-level deterministic view into every everyday human interaction. That's why we need two levels of philosophy, not just here but in all of philosophy.

We can't live like this:

- Honey, could you pass me the salt?
- Honey, I'm made of 10^28 atoms, which one are you asking? And how could one atom pass you the salt? Honey, you make absolutely no sense.

[Belinda]

It's silly of Immanuel Can to pretend or believe he can answer the Problem of Evil which no theologian has ever satisfactorily answered

Well, I certainly never said I had exhausted that question. The Bible itself calls the existence of evil a great "mystery," so it's not surprising if it can only be partly accounted for by any mortal explainer. That is, in fact, why our need for the Ultimate Judge is so great -- apart from the wisdom of God, there will be no full accounting for evil.

But what I have done is much more modest. I have responded to such challenges as I have been given with the reasoned explanations I have, so far as they can go. If they are not up to your "satisfaction," that's unfortunate -- but it does not at all imply that no such answer is possible, nor does it give one reason to suppose that God cannot do, to full "satisfaction," what I can do to only partial "satisfaction."

And there the matter rests.

Hume summarizes Epicurus's version of the problem as follows: "Is [god] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?

Well, that isn't terribly bright of him, is it? I mean, if this gloss on Hume were all he said, he would be rather a simpleton about the question of evil. He would be asking us to assume that God could have no sufficient reason for allowing any evil. That surely has to be the supposition of his question -- that God is obligated not to allow any evil to exist at all, and hence that He's either failing through inability or lack of moral commitment?

But I have already dealt with this simple allegation on several occasions; and it is not difficult. It must be clear to any thinking person that there COULD be reasons why the allowance of the option of humans doing evil could be necessary. And the traditional answer to what that might be is very straightforward: freedom. If man is allowed to choose to obey God, then by definition of the concept "choice" he must also have access to at least one alternative. And that alternative has to be to disobey (in some form) as well as to obey. And while it's not a permanent necessity for such an alternative to be present, it must be present no less than one time to each person, or "choice" is not even an illusion, but an utter impossibility.

Could freedom be a sufficient good that God would be warranted in allowing the possibility of His creatures choosing to do evil instead? I think the answer is very obviously "yes." Freedom is certainly one of the highest good, if not THE highest good we know. With freedom comes not only the possibility of choice, but also of individuality, personal will, self, identity, rationality, autonomy, and above all, genuine relationship. If there is no other way that mankind can enter into voluntary, genuine relationship with God, then his being granted, for a time, the option of doing other-that-God-wills (which is the definition of evil, we might say) is a necessary step, and ultimately requisite for the highest goods mankind can come to know.

So there is an answer for that putatively unsolvable paradox, B. I hope you find it "satisfying." But if you don't, you'll still need to consider whether or not it's at least largely right. In any case, we know that Hume's or Epicurius's dilemma is not a serious one. It's just a false dichotomy.

I can imagine that a benevolent and all powerful God would allow some small evils (such as colds in the head, comparatively insignificant careless mistakes, trusting all politicians, failing to turn the other cheek when one feels insulted, and so forth)so as to allow us scope to learn. But no good God would allow the Holocaust, burning to death of hospital patients connected to their drips, burying one terrified small boy in rubble, agonised unassisted dying, overflowing inefficient orphanages , slavery, and so forth----- so as to teach us some bloody lesson.

You are the only theologian I ever heard of who has so lightly brushed aside the Problem of Evil. There is an entire book in the OT devoted to the Problem of Evil.