Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 4:57 pm
No, it's not a "strawman" claim. I'm saying it because it's universally the case, regardless of what anybody might wish to think.
That statement commits the argument by assertion fallacy. Your other arguments are strawman because they presume premises not presumed by a self-described determinist, and utilized definitions that only make sense for a different view.
Notice that I do not do this. I don't assert that your view is wrong. I only point out all the fallacious reasoning you use to attempt to rationalize your position.
Determinism has no explanation of cognition that involves an individual human consciousness, a thought, a deliberation, a use of reason, a choice, an agent and a personal course of life.
Neither do you, but the naturalists are much closer to an explanation than your hand-waved black box that doesn't live up to its empirical predictions.
It's only explanations are "X did it to a body" (X being either physical stuff, or quantum randomness, or some other such Deterministic power).
Strawman wording and definitions. Yes, a determinist might say that actions of the body are the result of physical processes, with will and choice being implemented via those processes. As for how it works, one can make a very simple mechanical device that can make a choice. There is no need to sprinkle in magic. But it wouldn't be choice the way that you (or the experts whose view aligns with yours) define that word. That's your problem, not the problem of the determinist.
If Determinism were true, it would, in fact, make absolutely no difference what anybody thought.
I agree with that, which means you admit that if determinism were true, you'd still believe in something not true, an admission in contradiction with the unjustified assertion you gave above that it isn't possible for your belief to be wrong.
Volition is not a real thing, according to Determinism.
The determinist would differ.
He might, but he'd have no grounds to.[/quote]You didn't say he lacked grounds. You said that determinism (like there's one rule book for it somewhere) denies volition. Now you say he might, which contradicts that. Him lacking grounds is another strawman since the grounds are very much there. I will to have vanilla, I get vanilla. That's strong phenomenal grounds for the existence of volition, but hardly proof.
for the grass was fated to be long, then short
I was right about you confusing fatalism with determinism. The grass is shorter due to a deliberate choice made to cut the grass. This is not an extraordinary claim, only a claim that the choice is part of the cause of the grass being shorter. For it to be fate, it must get short even if a decision is made to not cut it, and there are those that suggest that. Of course, in a uni-history world, only one choice is made, even in your view, so there is no change from one thing to another. Perhaps I am misrepresenting your view and you disagree. It was not an assertion, just an observation.
And there was no human will to choose the change.
Strawman again. A determinist does not agree to that. Maybe some would. I'm not one of them either but I try not to put words in their mouths that directly contradict their position.
your ability to decide what would happen was not present
Wow, they keep on coming... You just make up nonsense about any view with which you don't agree, a fairly pathetic way to show any fault with it.
There was no distinct "you," just the ordinary operation of the physical universe.
What is considered to constitute a distinct 'you' varies from one opinion to the next and has little to do with one's position on the determinism or not issue. There are plenty of determinists (the majority of them I'd say) that do not deny a self. Look at bigMike's position. He very much defines a self, but he hardly holds the typical view of a self-described determinist. A naturalist would describe a person as being made up of particles that obey physical law. That description does not preclude a human identity of a living body.
It does get interesting to attempt to thwart the commonly held notion of identity, which by the way is the notion used in any court of law, and not your view of what constitutes a distinct 'you'.
Your "volition" wasn't a factor in why the lawn got mowed.
Quite the opposite. In your view the volition wasn't a factor since your non-physical choices cannot be shown to have any physical effect. BigMike was at least aware of this in the same way you are not, and your only retort seems to be hand waving that 'something magical happens' somewhere deliberately unspecific.
This is another serious criticism of Determinism. Since, as it claims, the mind is keyed not to truth but to survival
That claim has nothing to do with determinism. I suppose it is related to an acknowledgement of the validity of Darwin's theory, something I'm now suspecting you deny. Anyhoo, Darwin's theory is in no way dependent on determinism.
survival may well be enhanced by various delusions and lies, how can we trust the mind?
You trust it more to keep you alive. That's its purpose. Pursuit of truth is a recreation that few undertake, and the biggest lie anyone can tell themselves is to think they know the truth.
Well, that's supposing that the Determinist hopes to be rational
Nobody is rational. My opinion. I suppose plenty hope to be. I pursue rationality, but I don't ever expect or hope to actually be rational. The irrational part of me cannot accept that. It cannot put the rational part in charge. Such a being would not be fit, and then the pursuit of truth would cease.
What that entails is no "taxicabbing" one's beliefs: if you take a ride in the Determinist "taxi," one has to take it all the way to the destination it takes one to. To jump out half way, and to run away without "paying the fare," is dishonest and hypocritical. And I assume Determinists do not want to be either, do they? So if they claim Determinism is true, they they owe it to honesty and consistency to ride it all the way, no matter what unsavoury outcomes that entails.
You've obviously not taken the ride. The fare is not so unsavory, but it sure appears that way if you jump off early. And no, I'm no determinist, but the fare in my case is quite similar I suspect.
But we don't find that. Instead, we find that the relation between brain structure and cognition is highly variable, loose and "reprogrammable," so to speak.
That's a deterministic description. Yes, it is reprogrammable by rearrangement of the wiring. None of that is due to non-physical causes. I need from you any structure that can be shown to glean physical information from a non-physical source. You are hand-waving again, saying 'wibbly wobbly, timey wimey' to detract from the lack of any such structure.
So there's no easy link between physiological sub-feature of the brain and cognition.
No link at all given your definitions of some of those words. Saying it is 'mysterious' is akin to saying it is inexplicable. It must exist for your view to work, and yet nobody looks for it. To deny this is to deny that non-physical choice can have any physical effect.
And if you can solve that one, the Nobel Prize will surely be yours.
So your view has a fatal problem since it predicts something that nobody can find. Yes, a Nobel prize indeed if you can throw all of naturalism on its can with such a simple discovery.
You've really got to get a new word...or at least look the one you're using up, so you can use it correctly.
