compatibilism

[Belinda]

And where do these "evils" that must be "resisted" come from?

That wasn't it. You were hoping I wouldn't notice the man-made component of climate change, so that you could list it among your alleged "indictments" of the God you don't believe in.

Let's be honest here. Anybody reading what you wrote can see that.

You misrepresent my intentions which are honest.

Maybe. And maybe not. You certainly misrepresented what I had said, so fair enough.

The evils such as Job's troubles ,which in order to live we must resist, come from "the whirlwind".

Not according to the Book of Job. Maybe that's your own esoteric or Jungian "reinterpretation," but the text won't support any such reading.

The voice from the whirlwind is deterministic: the voice from the whirlwind is saying God is all-powerful in the sense that God is the pancreator. Pancreator ordains all that happens. When you can't resist natural evils then you must endure them is the moral from the Book of Job.
Today, the political extreme right are saying man made climate change does not exist. It's most important for the survival of the entire biosphere that we today stop ruining the climate that supports life. It's not a wise strategy to endure what is happening, or to deny what is happening.
You yourself as Immanuel Can relate your Biblical knowledge and your theology to sorting present evils by punishing 'sins'. This is a narrow and insufficient way to relate to God.

[Immanuel Can]

You misrepresent my intentions which are honest.

Maybe. And maybe not. You certainly misrepresented what I had said, so fair enough.

The evils such as Job's troubles ,which in order to live we must resist, come from "the whirlwind".

Not according to the Book of Job. Maybe that's your own esoteric or Jungian "reinterpretation," but the text won't support any such reading.

The voice from the whirlwind is deterministic:

Not in Job, it's not. Maybe in the Jungian reimagining you're talking about, but not in the text.

When you can't resist natural evils then you must endure them is the moral from the Book of Job.

That's absolutely NOT what the Book of Job teaches. It has almost no concern with natural evils, except as they occur as evidences of the judgment of God.

Today, the political extreme right are saying man made climate change does not exist.

They aren't actually. They're saying that the changes in the climate are largely natural, and those that aren't are not being addressed by the so-called "measures" being advocated in the West. And about that latter, you can see for sure they're right: there are no serious conversations about human contribution to climate changes that do not begin with the words "China and India." And that's because China and India, and also Rio and Kampala, but not New York or Tokyo, will decide whether carbon pollution and such continue.

The problem with the climate people is that they're nowhere near serious about dealing with the problem. They think a bit of recycling and a couple of electric cars represent some kind of response to global pollution.

You yourself as Immanuel Can relate your Biblical knowledge and your theology to sorting present evils by punishing 'sins'. This is a narrow and insufficient way to relate to God.

That's not what I think. But taking you seriously, on what do you base that claim that that is "narrow and insufficient"? Is it any more than the feeling you don't like it?

[Belinda]

Maybe. And maybe not. You certainly misrepresented what I had said, so fair enough.

Not according to the Book of Job. Maybe that's your own esoteric or Jungian "reinterpretation," but the text won't support any such reading.

The voice from the whirlwind is deterministic:

Not in Job, it's not. Maybe in the Jungian reimagining you're talking about, but not in the text.

When you can't resist natural evils then you must endure them is the moral from the Book of Job.

That's absolutely NOT what the Book of Job teaches. It has almost no concern with natural evils, except as they occur as evidences of the judgment of God.

Today, the political extreme right are saying man made climate change does not exist.

They aren't actually. They're saying that the changes in the climate are largely natural, and those that aren't are not being addressed by the so-called "measures" being advocated in the West. And about that latter, you can see for sure they're right: there are no serious conversations about human contribution to climate changes that do not begin with the words "China and India." And that's because China and India, and also Rio and Kampala, but not New York or Tokyo, will decide whether carbon pollution and such continue.

The problem with the climate people is that they're nowhere near serious about dealing with the problem. They think a bit of recycling and a couple of electric cars represent some kind of response to global pollution.

You yourself as Immanuel Can relate your Biblical knowledge and your theology to sorting present evils by punishing 'sins'. This is a narrow and insufficient way to relate to God.

That's not what I think. But taking you seriously, on what do you base that claim that that is "narrow and insufficient"? Is it any more than the feeling you don't like it?

Sorry, I can't take you seriously any more. Despite your encyclopedic knowledge of Scripture your insist that Job's troubles are the judgement of God . Job's troubles were despite his being good and pious man. There was no recognisable sin for God to judge Job on the basis of.

Besides your odd interpretation of Job, I fear all who despise "the climate people". You yourself have little idea of the seriousness of man made climate change.

Your relationship with your God is your private business , but your political stance vis a vis China and India with regard to climate change is limited : you don't understand that the USA is currently the worst offender in the world.

[iambiguous]

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

Needless to mention the cognitive ability of a human actor will also have a great effect on claims of moral responsibility. For instance, if a killer has a serious cognitive disability, such that they really can’t recognise what they’ve done, their victim’s family may take a more forgiving position in consideration of their lack of understanding.

More to the point [perhaps] how did cognitive ability come to be at all? And, in regard to it, why is there such an enormous gap between human beings and all the rest of the animal kingdom?

Also, the biggest imponderable of them all may be this: just how many other advanced civilizations are there "out there" in the universe?

As for the killer, that's just one more moral quandary unless determinism is the real deal. Then the part where, given free will, my own moral philosophy may well be, what, the grimmest of them all? No God and the killer may never get caught, or he may succeed in framing someone else, or the killing itself may be widely applauded in the community, or the killer may be able to get away with murder because he is power and might makes right. And on and on.

However, in this case too measures will be taken by legal institutions, not so much for punishment as for the purpose of reducing the potential danger.

Back to the part [for me] where some here make a distinction between actions and reactions. As though those who react by punishing someone for an act they deem to be dangerous are not as well reacting on Nature's cue.

Unless, of course, that is a prime example of something I am just not able to grasp "here and now".

We can see that despite the fact that the degree of pain and the initial emotional reaction remains the same in all three scenarios, these reactive attitudes do not themselves fully justify the claim of moral responsibility. That claim is based purely on rational judgement, and requires the fulfilment of three criteria: agency, intention, and adequate cognitive capacity.

I certainly don't believe they do. At least not until someone is able -- click -- to demonstrate how the demonstration itself is both determined and compatible with moral responsibility?

Then the part where the 3 criteria somehow fit into The Gap and Rummy's Rule. Frivolous to some, perhaps, but absolutely vital to others.

Accordingly, in response to the first point of Strawson’s argument, I conclude that the natural human disposition for reactive emotional attitudes towards events happening to them or around them cannot on its own justify the ascription of moral responsibility. This is because ascribing moral responsibility is not based on emotions. Rather, it is based on judgement.

On the contrary, say many in possession of an Intrinsic Self. That deep down inside them intuitive, spiritual, natural, "I just know" reaction to many things that renders rational thinking as...of less importance?

Strawson's argument and her reaction to it are either interchangeable in the only possible world or they're not? How is the author's own assessment of judgment not in and of itself wholly determined?

[iambiguous]

Imo: Again, the "I" is a part of the brain, and according to the deterministic laws of matter, you could have made the everyday choice to give your thread a fitting title. The problem wasn't with the ability to make choices here.

Exactly! The problem remains that in regard to the relationship between "I" and the brain and the laws of matter, it's certainly not the fact that we do make choices. Instead, the problem revolves more around the extent to which mere mortals are making these choices of their own free will. And beyond the arguments and "worlds of words" posted here, how exactly is that demonstrated?

Again, your ability to make everyday choices is also a part of Mother Nature. You also write that script.

This is just another intellectual, philosophical "leap of faith" to me. And, again, in regard to this exchange itself where/when/how/why does Mother Nature give way to Atla in this everyday world.

In other words, you assert that...

Again, Nature mostly programs me, but I also program Nature a litte by making everyday choices.

Now, if Mary were to ask you about her abortion because she just wasn't sure if she was in fact wholly determined to kill her unborn baby/clump of cells and you assured her that Mother Nature was a part of that but not the whole part, what, for all practical purposes, going back to the sex that precipitated the pregnancy that precipitated the abortion that precipitated philosophical discussions about it, is she to make of that?

Well I think we can conclude this exchange.

Well, click or not, that's the advantage you have over me. You can get my truly grim conclusions out of your head simply by moving on the others and not reading my posts. Me, I'm in my head 24/7. And then 365 days a year. All I can hope for is that one day Mother Nature compels me to embrace a far more optimistic frame of mind. Or someone here [or there or there] is able to persuade me that, not only do I have free will, but if I am able to come around to their own One True Path, I can have objective morality, immortality and salvation too!

Imo like many determinists themselves, you seem to think that a distant point in the past, the Big Bang, has Absolute Authority over everything.

Note where I ever concluded that? Instead, given The Gap and Rummy's Rule, I don't rule anything as either necessarily in or necessarily out.

But I disagree, imo this horrific take is based on the outdated Newtonian absolute conception of time. But Einstein has shown that all spacetime perspectives are equal, so I'm also programming the determinism of the "only possible reality". My everyday choices may not have cosmic significance on the order of the Big bang's significance, but they are quite relevant to my own life.

Right, like Newton and Einstein were themselves not an inherent component of the only possible reality. Though we clearly have a different take on what "the only possible reality" means.

The above could be summarized as the attitude: "whatever I choose to do and am able to do, is the determined only possible reality".
The other attitude: "the Big Bang has 100% control over me and I'm nothing" is so psychologically destructive and imo not even correct.

Now the part where anyone here is actually able to demonstrate why their own "attitude" is the real deal. And going all the way back to...to what exactly?

[iambiguous]

I think what he's getting at, that he's not so great at expressing, is that if physicalist determinism is true, then those macroscopic events would both just be physics playing out. He's saying, if physics produces a bunch of balls bouncing this way, or a bunch of cubes bouncing that way, who cares? What's the difference? It's just physics.

The living entities, which are affected, care. It makes a difference to them.

Maybe it makes no difference to "in the clouds" philosophers.

Again, the assumption that what we care about, what we love, what we are passionate about, etc., is felt so intimately, so intensely, so viscerally by us "inside", free will must be the real deal "inside" our brains.

And "I" certainly have little or no doubt that this may well be the case. But beyond the arguments regarding what we think and feel and say and do regarding these things, what can we add here in the way of actually demonstrating this is the case?

Then the part where we explain all the things we care about in our dreams. In mine, what I care about is virtually interchangeable with what i care about wide awake. But it's my brain virtually all the way down in my dreams. How did the autonomous "I" come to be?

[iambiguous]

I'm sorry. I didn't realze you could use a link. Was it a car accident? Or is this a kind or royal attitude? We don't use links, peasant.

Here, your highness. Here's are the arguments that in two forums you have opted not to respond to. Yes, the one in this forum was not addressed to you, but then I linked to it three times. You did quote from it, but you did not interact with it. And these are not the first times that Phyllo, FJ or I (and possibly others) have responded to your request.

Mother Nature to iambiguous:

Okay, you've convinced me. It is a "condition".

1) Please explain why it would be wrong/non-sensical/false to hold someone responsible for unprovoked physical violence. Don't just ask nebulous questions as an appeal to incredulity. Don't just appeal to determinism - maybe we are all compelled to think.....

Simply unbelievable! On the other hand, what if it's not?!!

From my own considerably subjective/subjunctive frame of mind, it's not really at all a question of holding someone responsible for what they do. As some hard determinists will argue, it's more the reality of demonstrating that what they did do they did of their own volition. And since "here and now" I've taken my own "rooted existentially in dasein" leap of faith to one or another rendition of determinism, of course I'm going to bring that into the discussion. But as with you, beyond a philosophical argument, itself, I'm no less stuck given The Gap and Rummy's Rule.

1) 2) Because you continuously use appeals to incredulity around this issue, which means you think it is obvious we can't hold people responsible for there actions because maybe their actions are determined.

This -- click -- is nothing short of preposterous. A part of me certainly believes in holding people responsible for what they do. Or, here, holding people responsible for what they post. It's just that, existentially, I came upon the arguments [and that's all they are so far, worlds of words] of the hard determinists. And what they told me about the human brain being just more matter wholly in sync with the laws of matter, well, what does that mean for all practical purposes?

1) 3) Actually interact with what I wrote.

This part again. Like there is absolutely no possibility that what he really means here is this: that interaction with him means agreeing with him. Hell, given what may well be the ineffable components of human psychology itself, he may not even be aware that he is doing this,

1) 4) Don't attribute to me or ask me about positions I do not have. I do not think that my responses to the violence of my posts here are exceptions to determinism. I don't think that brain cells are autonomous.

But your own brain cells sure seem compelled to come after me here. Now, given free will, I speculate that this revolves more around the fact that inch by inch I'm bringing you closer and closer to a fractured and fragment assessment of meaning, morality and metaphysics. And -- click -- I can still recall just how perturbed I was myself when "I" first came to that conclusion.

1) 5) Don't merely tell me 'Well, from my perspective.....'. If you have a persepective, justify it.

Same thing. You read my arguments. But since they still don't coincide with yours, I've justified nothing. On the other hand, I'm not reluctant at all to acknowledge that your assessment here is in fact more reasonable than mine. Take it to the hard guys and gals and get back to us.

1) As I've said earlier I think responsibility is compatible - and to me clearly in the practical sense - with determinism.

This even though you "don't think that brain cells are autonomous"? Where then does the autonomy originate? Not with God right?

And you've said lots of things. Now please accumulate actual hard evidence that might perhaps demonstrate to others why they should say the same things too.

I see no reason to not react to, including taking measures, iindividuals doing things we consider dangerous to others, for example.

I've been over this. People do dangerous things. Other people react to the dangerous things they do. The acts are determined but the reactions are not? The rapists are unable not to rape but society is still "somehow" able to punish them as though they were able to choose not to?

What, just because you are able to see no reason not to react to something, that makes the reaction...what...the real deal?

As for this...

Sometimes in this and other of his threads he hsa made the distinction between intellectual contraptions and, in my words, down to earth, practical applications of ideas. Well, I see it as perfectly reasonable to isolate a rapist from society. I don't hold a table responsible for his raping. I don't hold non-rapists responsibile. I might hold, for example, his parents or someone who sexually abused him parly responsible and take measures in relation to them also. There might also be societal causes: systemic sexism, for example - and these I might also want to hold responsible and take measures in relation to. The up in the clouds idea that his actions could not have been otherwise going back to the Big Bang might lead to greater sympathy for the rapist on my part. But I would still consider him a person who may rape again and it is more likely he will than someone who has not raped and we need to do something about that.

The only way to understand the relationship between I and the brain and consciousness and moral responsibility is to think about them as he does.

Well, the "up in the clouds philosophical relationships" perhaps.

The person we punish is not empty of traits, even in determinism. He, in this case, is someone who has the desire to rape and lived it out. While the causes go back to the Big Bang and perhaps beyond, and even though they are inevitable, this does not mean that his nature has nothing to do with his acts. He is the one who rapes. He has qualities that lead to rape.

Again, it still boggles my mind how people can make arguments like this. But since some of them have struck me as very intelligent men and woman, I have to assume it's me here not getting what is actually the case.

Just fuck The Gap and Rummy's Rule altogether, right?

Both the rapist desire to rape and the fact that he did rape were inevitable. Going all the way back to whatever set into motion matter/existence/human biology/human sexuality in the first place?

If causation had nothing to do with essence, it would be different. I'm not sure how. But if anyone regardless of attitudes toward women, tendencies to aggressive acts and all that had NOTHING to do with rape, that might be a different situation.

Again, from the perspective of the hard determinists, everything pertaining to the rape and reactions to it are inherent components of the only possible reality.

Of course, all he seems to be doing here is pasting his older posts about this anew. Posts [points] I have already responded to.

In a deterministic universe...
Is anger in reaction to a rape justified?
Is taking measures in relation to a rapist justified?
Is thinking of that person as presenting a problem justified?

I think the answers are yes to all of those.

Again, as though simply noting this is the equivalent of demonstrating that they are true.

Or back to Mary...

Is anger in reaction to the abortion justified?
Is taking measures in relation to abortion [to forbid them] justified?

The rest is just more of the same. Uh, literally?

If I considered abortion immoral, sure I could hold someone responsible for having done that. And in a practical sense, I would hold someone responsible for doing that, even without moral judgment. If she or they came to my clinic, asked for an abortion, I performed it and she started saying she was not going to pay for my services because the Big Bang was responsible for her getting the abortion, I would not suddenly buckly in my claim for payment.

That word, responsible, is how we frame reacting to actions we like and abhor. It is part of the process of deciding on what measures we take: giving someone a reward, expressing gratitude, calling someone a Stooge, putting them in prison, firing them, giving them a bonus.

People take idiotic measures, yes. People have all sorts of moral postions, including obviously contradictory ones and ones I abhor, but should it turn out to be the case that we are determined utterly and this is finally laid to rest and proven, I see no reason to change the basic process here involved in holding indviduals responsible for acts.

There can certainly be an incredible amount of needed discussion about the measures taken and what other now existent things, people and processes might or might not also be responsible. And this doesn't eliminate issues like 'is there an objective morality' for me.

And any rapist arguing that they should nto be held responsible because it was inevitable that they would rape due to determinism would be using an intellectual contraption that has very little to do with life on the ground, here in day to day life. That would be an up in the clouds response and assessment and not one he would use in relation to infections, someone stealing his car, someone hitting him with a hammer in the street, someone who did him a favor and so on. In those instances he would hold people and things responsible. He'd be being a hypocrite. And of course his argument would mean he has nothing to complain about in relation to the people considering him responsible and taking measures, given that they would not be responsible for their reactions in his schema.

Etc, etc, etc.

Trust me: if you don't concur with all of his conclusions here, you have either failed to truly understand them or...or you haven't even read them?

Finally! The man with the hammer. Just not a hammer used in a rape or in an abortion.

The issue I will present is someoner runs up to me on the street and hits me with a hammer. This is someone I do not know and I haven’t done anything to this person. Would I hold them responsible if I believed in any form of determinism, soft or hard? Yes.

How is this not basically the same thing? The act of being hit by the hammer. The act of reacting to that. The man could never have not hit him, the hard determinists insist. But then they insist further that any reaction to being hit by the hammer is also necessarily embedded in the only possible reality.

The circumstances of their life might shift the degree of my emotional reactions to them, but I would still hold them responsible. What does this mean? I would call the police, knowing full well, that this person might end up in prison or potentially some kind of forced psychiatric care. Yes, that was an inevitable act on his part, but he did it. He is the person who does this kind of thing. If someone had his wife at gunpoint and said hit that guy with a hammer, then he isn’t really a guy who runs up to strangers and hits them with a hammer. It took a very specific chain of causes to lead him to this act, ones that society can consider very unlikely to occur again, and in any case any measures taken to prevent such repeated situations are better aimed at other people and not this guy.

All of this, in my view, either unfolded in the only possible world or "somehow" when it comes to reacting to things others do and holding them responsible, the brain/mind/I shifts into however the compatibilists conclude that this works "for all practical purposes".

Well, as long as we don't actually go there given our social, political and economic interactions with others from day to day. Or, if we do, we come to the same conclusions he does.

He is, it seems, a person who can do this. I will feel those feelings I feel when I hold someone responsible for someone and I see no reason to try to stop having those feelings if I am convinced completely it is a fully determined universe.

Just as he feels what he feels given that both the desire to rape and the act of rape itself are...inevitable? I guess he just didn't know that when people react to what he did that's from an entirely different state of consciousness.

Heck, my feelings are also caused. I also see no reason to not treat him as responsible for the act. I could hold the universe responsible, but that gives me no practical reaction. Holding this man responsible leads to measures being taken that hopefully will prevent or minimize the changes of it happening again AND will also be cause possibly preventing other hammar wielders.

Note to others:

Please advise how you see the man hitting someone with a hammer as different from him raping someone. Where does the autonomy come in, aside from mere mortals insisting that it's in there "somehow". It's just got to be or else the horror of living in a world where the brute facticity of material laws -- rapes, abortions, final solutions etc. -- is just too much to bear.

Oh, they put people in prison for attacking people with hammers, I am going to try not to do that, even though I feel a strong urge. Holding the individual responsible sets in motion consequences that in turn become causes that may prevent other people from doing that or something similar.

Or maybe that's it. This "strong urge" of his is just his very own equivalent of the Intrinsic Self. That deep down inside "I just know" Self able to grasp what is really, really true. Even in regard to meaning, morality and metaphysics.

All the rest...

Of course other factors are at play and if determinism is the case, I think I might focus even more on societal causes. For example, if he was bullied in school horrendously for a decade and no one did much about this, I would also hold the school system, either part of it or the system itself, responsible. So, responsibility gets spread around, perhaps to some degree more if one is a determinist. But one does not need to choose between. And, of course, the school system had to be the way it was, in terms of determined outcomes. I could try to hold the Big Bang responsible and try to hit it with a hammer, but this 1) I can’t do 2) doesn’t in any way help prevent future violence and 3) need not rule out holding this guy responsible.

If it turns out he is psychotic, my reactions will be affected, and if meds or therapy can eliminate the problem, then in a sense I would no longer hold him responsible, once that first holding him responsible led to him getting the care he needed. I’m certainly not going to suggest anti-psychotic meds get put in our water supply. No I will be viewing him as the problem until he is not.

...is just the argument he makes. And, sure, if you define the meaning of all the words he uses above in the same way, you'll agree with him. As though only fools don't get that part.

You could also use the hammer incident example? There’s free will and you know it OR there’s determinism and you know it. What practical differences would you want there to be in relation to the hammer wielder? Would you hold him responsible in one universe where you know it is determined and another where you know there is free will? And if the answer is different - for example, you would hold him resonsible in the free will world but not in the other, what actual differences would this thought lead to?

This seems [to me] to be where phyllo goes with this. That in regard to human interactions, determinism and free will seem to be interchangeable. Whatever happens happens. As though a man compelled by his brain to hit you with a hammer isn't really any different at all from a man who, for his own personal [and autonomous] reasons, hates your guts and hits you with a hammer. As though the common denominator here is only being hit with the hammer itself.

[iambiguous]

It's not a question of what is more or less reasonable to do in regard to rapists, but whether or not you can demonstrate that in fact your own assessment here of what is reasonable reflects your own volition.

The claim that it's "perfectly reasonable to isolate a rapist from society"...what on Earth does that really mean if you had no option to conclude otherwise?

What's interesting about this is that true statements never reflect your volition. True statements and reasonable statements are "compelled" by the state of the world. Lies can be said of your own volition.

Actually, what's interesting about this [to me] is that I still don't really know what it has to do anything "for all practical purposes".

What statements are said to be true? And, one way or the other, how exactly do we go about demonstrating that they are true other than up in the philosophical clouds here.

If you are looking at a blue ball and you say "Here is a blue ball" then you are being "compelled" to say it by that blue ball.

Hmm, I wonder if that is anywhere at all in the vicinity of how a hard determinist might encompass that?

Instead, it sounds like something out of Awakenings: https://youtu.be/Hj52vD7KGxs?si=E8FSBS0P7PP81gql

Though here I will readily acknowledge again just how mind-boggling the human brain can be. The people in the film were ravaged by a disease that impacted their brains in ways that most of us could never imagine. Let alone really explain.

If you are color blind and you say "Here is a green ball" then you are being "compelled" by your faulty sensors to make a false statement. Although it does not appear false to you.

On the other hand, taking into account how the human eye, intertwined with the human brain creates colors that are not even there "in reality", it just exposes yet again how we can easily be tricked by a brain doing the best it can to make sense of things given the laws of matter having evolved as far as they have here on Earth. Color is just an illusion. So, what else coming from the brain is no less illusory?

If you are lying, then you can say anything ... "Here is a purple ball" or "Here is a black rabbit". A disconnect between your statement and the state of the world. There you have volition.

Why? Because he says so?

Of course, I'm not talking about the volition to say the truth, lie or remain silent.

Note to others:

Your take on that, please.

Or how about the part where someone picks up the blue or green or purple ball -- a croquet ball say -- and bashes someone over the head with it, killing them.

How would they go about explaining to us what part here was Mother Nature and what part was the...the Real Me?

[Immanuel Can]

Sorry, I can't take you seriously any more. Despite your encyclopedic knowledge of Scripture your insist that Job's troubles are the judgement of God .

Show me where (you think) I said those words. Give the quotation.

Or else, stop making things up, trying to put words in my mouth, and then blaming me for your own errors.

I fear all who despise "the climate people".

"Fear"? I don't fear hypocrites, or "despise" anybody as a person. I have contempt for their lies, sure. But they don't scare me one bit. Why are you scared?

Here's Yale on the subject: "China is responsible for about one-quarter of annual climate-warming pollution, and together with India, the two countries account for one-third of yearly global emissions (the U.S. accounts for about 11%)." And we should add that the UK accounts for about 2%.

How about the International Energy Agency? They say, "China’s total CO2 emissions exceeded those of the advanced economies combined in 2020, and in 2023 were 15% higher. India surpassed the European Union to become the third largest source of global emissions in 2023. Countries in developing Asia now account for around half of global emissions, up from around two-fifths in 2015 and around one‑quarter in 2000. China alone accounts for 35% of global CO2 emissions."

So now, if you're so informed and alarmed about climate change, tell me how you're going to fix climate change without engaging China and India. I'd love to hear that story.

...the USA is currently the worst offender in the world.

I'd like to think you're serious. I'd like to think you actually know something about man-made climate change. But if you do, then you'd never make a statement like that.

So if you are actually serious about man-made climate change, why do you care so little about it that you can't even name the country that, by all reputable accounts you can find, is actually the number 1 offender in the world correctly -- namely, China?

[Walker]

It's man that superimposes order on chaos.

I’d say that for man, creation is the discovery of order*.

The evidence indicates that perceiving order in chaos is a discovery. For example, Einstein didn’t superimpose upon chaos his famous equation of order. He discovered it. Any possible accurate refinements to that ordering would be discoveries.

But, I understand your point in the sense that man carves a habitat out of the wilderness by superimposing order; however, even that order is shaped by discovering the qualities of available elements to superimpose order upon chaos, elements such as wood that creates the order of a cozy home and hearth fire. Discovery of more complex orderings of chaos in the name of security, such as the making and stacking of bricks and/or nuclear weapons, does superimpose order upon the big bad wolf of chaos.

* However for woman, creation might be the cultivation of chaos as an evolutionary adaptation of the so-called “weaker sex” in order to keep man off-balance and susceptible to the chaotic persuasions of love, which Eve may have discovered when Adam started acting goofy.

[Walker]

(continued)

For a further ordering, the sound of Ah, as in Ahhh, and as in the Ah Ha of discovery, is the primordial sound.

[Belinda]

It's man that superimposes order on chaos.

I’d say that for man, creation is the discovery of order*.

The evidence indicates that perceiving order in chaos is a discovery. For example, Einstein didn’t superimpose upon chaos his famous equation of order. He discovered it. Any possible accurate refinements to that ordering would be discoveries.

But, I understand your point in the sense that man carves a habitat out of the wilderness by superimposing order; however, even that order is shaped by discovering the qualities of available elements to superimpose order upon chaos, elements such as wood that creates the order of a cozy home and hearth fire. Discovery of more complex orderings of chaos in the name of security, such as the making and stacking of bricks and/or nuclear weapons, does superimpose order upon the big bad wolf of chaos.

* However for woman, creation might be the cultivation of chaos as an evolutionary adaptation of the so-called “weaker sex” in order to keep man off-balance and susceptible to the chaotic persuasions of love, which Eve may have discovered when Adam started acting goofy.

Is order discovered by men ,or alternatively created by men. That is the question that divides theism and atheism.
As you remark, Einstein discovered order but did not create order. I'd further add that Spinoza discovered order but did not create order. However, Einstein discovered order based within an ordered system of mathematics. and of physics. Spinoza discovered order based within the ordered system of reasoning. Einstein was Dasein. Spinoza was Dasein. You and I are Daseins. All is subjective: there is no objective order.

(Your other illustrations e.g. the discovery that fire is a useful servant are based within prevalent cultures of belief and technology, which themselves are inter-subjective )

If this world is a deterministic world we only 'know' it through faith in the primal existence of order(God). Even if it's true that nature or Creator-God is basic order and that the world as God/order determined it to be, that does not imply that we can predict that the future is not basically chaotic and that there is a final end in view.

Your final paragraph is teleological but despite that fact you claim it's something to do with "evolutionary adaptation". It's impossible that nature be both deterministic and open -ended.

[phyllo]

phyllo wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 7:04 pm

I think what he's getting at, that he's not so great at expressing, is that if physicalist determinism is true, then those macroscopic events would both just be physics playing out. He's saying, if physics produces a bunch of balls bouncing this way, or a bunch of cubes bouncing that way, who cares? What's the difference? It's just physics.

The living entities, which are affected, care. It makes a difference to them.

Maybe it makes no difference to "in the clouds" philosophers.

Again, the assumption that what we care about, what we love, what we are passionate about, etc., is felt so intimately, so intensely, so viscerally by us "inside", free will must be the real deal "inside" our brains.

Who is Iambiguous talking about? Who is making this assumption?

A dog cares whether it is being beaten or not. That's not an assumption, it's an observation.

[Belinda]

Sorry, I can't take you seriously any more. Despite your encyclopedic knowledge of Scripture your insist that Job's troubles are the judgement of God .

Show me where (you think) I said those words. Give the quotation.

Or else, stop making things up, trying to put words in my mouth, and then blaming me for your own errors.

I fear all who despise "the climate people".

"Fear"? I don't fear hypocrites, or "despise" anybody as a person. I have contempt for their lies, sure. But they don't scare me one bit. Why are you scared?

Here's Yale on the subject: "China is responsible for about one-quarter of annual climate-warming pollution, and together with India, the two countries account for one-third of yearly global emissions (the U.S. accounts for about 11%)." And we should add that the UK accounts for about 2%.

How about the International Energy Agency? They say, "China’s total CO2 emissions exceeded those of the advanced economies combined in 2020, and in 2023 were 15% higher. India surpassed the European Union to become the third largest source of global emissions in 2023. Countries in developing Asia now account for around half of global emissions, up from around two-fifths in 2015 and around one‑quarter in 2000. China alone accounts for 35% of global CO2 emissions."

So now, if you're so informed and alarmed about climate change, tell me how you're going to fix climate change without engaging China and India. I'd love to hear that story.

...the USA is currently the worst offender in the world.

I'd like to think you're serious. I'd like to think you actually know something about man-made climate change. But if you do, then you'd never make a statement like that.

So if you are actually serious about man-made climate change, why do you care so little about it that you can't even name the country that, by all reputable accounts you can find, is actually the number 1 offender in the world correctly -- namely, China?

I may be ignorant about which country is the worst, but I do care. I feel pessimistic about climate change and I wish there were a loving Heavenly Father who would and could save us. But such a belief makes us even more unsafe ---if that be possible.
I am not clever enough to tell you how to make this a safer world but my feeling is that politicians alone can't do it and the necessary austerity must be embraced by ordinary people like me and you. Religion has always had a role in shaping people's ideas and a role in introducing these ideas to ruling regimes. Undoubtedly some ideas sponsored by religions have been evil ideas(such as witch trials) but I do trust that human reason can and will develop a reasonable religion for present day needs as has happened in the historical past as evidenced by wise and good men such as Jesus, and Nelson Mandela.

As for China and India, I understand they are major polluters, and the fact that are lately developed as industrial nations does not excuse them from the ecological imperative.

[Iwannaplato]

phyllo wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 7:04 pm



The living entities, which are affected, care. It makes a difference to them.

Maybe it makes no difference to "in the clouds" philosophers.

Again, the assumption that what we care about, what we love, what we are passionate about, etc., is felt so intimately, so intensely, so viscerally by us "inside", free will must be the real deal "inside" our brains.

Who is Iambiguous talking about? Who is making this assumption?

A dog cares whether it is being beaten or not. That's not an assumption, it's an observation.

He got confused, as far as I can see. You're saying that even if determinism is the case, we still care about what happens. He took this as somehow meaning that the feelings in our heads mean free will is the case.

If you are in a stressed state and you see a shadow move, you are more likely to see a burgler or some monster. I have no idea what state Iambiguous is in, but I have seen enough times where he quotes someone who says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT BRAINS being autonomous and not determined, where he asks why they believe this or how we know this is true. It might actually be dozens of times.

What people write REMIND him of something. And he responds as if they said something else.

So, here, he seems to have taken what you wrote as an argument that free will is true because it feels that way strongly to you.

He can't really see what people write. And if he did, it would mean he wouldn't get to say, mock, dismiss. Don't let other people's ideas get in the way of what you feel like saying might be the motto.